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ORATIONS 

AND 

HISTORICAL ADDRESSES 




Jd/aUr Jii^'. 



ORATIONS . 

AND 

HISTORICAL ADDRESSES 



BY 

SAMUEL FURMAN HUNT, LL. D., L. H. D. 

Late Judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, Ohio 
EDITED BY 

The Members of His Family 
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY 

BY CALVIN DILL WILSON 



' Judge Hunt kept the fires of antiquity burning." 

Dr. George C. S. Southworth. 



JBb 



CINCINNATI 

THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY 

1908 






Copyright, 190S 
By JAMES BAIRD HUNT 



WAY 11 iiJOB' 

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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Fallen Brave 1 

Miami's Honored Dead 8 

Miami Union Literary Society 11 

Faculty of Cincinnati Law School 15 

Law and Medicine 18 

Chief Justice Waite 24 

The Veto Power 26 

Centennial of the Republic 49 

Scholarship and Country 73 

Conscience in Public Life 97 

General Grant 126 

The Miami Valley 134 

Mexican War : Causes and Results 161 

Young Men's Mercantile Library Association of Cincin- 
nati 180 

The Ordinance of 1787 : Its History and Influence on the 

Northwestern States 196 

James A. Garfield 219 

Major General Richard Montgomery 226 

In Memory of Judge E. F. Noyes, E. C. Williams, and 

Judge J. A. Jordan 244 

Rufus King 248 

The Defeat of Major General Arthur St. Clair 254 

Charles McMicken 283 

Annual Address before Bar Association 309 

Christopher Columbus 345 

The American Flag 360 

Abraham Lincoln 370 

General Anthony Wayne and the Battle of Fallen Timbers 388 
The Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity ; its Ideals and Mis- 
sion 417 

King Philip's War 432 

James Robert Bickley 444 

Springfield Township Pioneer Association 448 

[vii] 



FOREWORD 

There are many evidences that Judge Hunt 
made so indelible an imprint upon multitudes liy 
his life and speeches as to call for the pviblication 
of his orations in permanent form. It was his own 
plan that his addi'esses should be issued, and he 
had made partial arrangements toward this end, in 
so far as to gather his manuscripts together and to 
inscribe the proposed book to his mother. Since, 
during the invalidism of his last years, he was not 
able to undertake the labor of seeing the volume 
through the i^ress, nor indeed to complete the 
necessary editing of the material, members of his 
family have undertaken to have his wishes, and 
those of his many friends, fulfilled. They have 
deemed it fitting, also, that a biography should be 
included in the book. The reader will thus become 
aware that for the issue of the orations, arrange- 
ment, and for the dedication. Judge Hunt himself 
w^as sponsor ; for the title, and the biography, others 
are accountable. This explanation is given lest 
any one should be led to think that Judge Hmit, 
who was ever modest in regard to his talents, was 
in any way responsible for the praise of his 
achievements which is to be foimd in the essay on 
his life contained herein. 

C. D. W. 

[ix] 



JUDGE SAMUEL FURMAN HUNT 

A BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY 

Judge Hiuit made au abiding impression as an 
orator of extraordinary eloquence and power, as a 
man of imusual social elegance and accomplisli- 
ments, as an enthusiastic leader in educational 
progress, as an able and courteous judge on the 
bench of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, as a 
devoted patriot, as a lover of the history of his 
state, as a loyal friend and gentle neighbor, and as 
a warm-hearted and just man. 

His personality was so wiiming and at the same 
time so strong, his intellectual, social and oratori- 
cal talents were so brilliant, his work in various 
spheres was so able, vigorous and solid, as to make 
him a figure whose reputation will last. Men of 
all classes, farmers who heard him many times at 
their harvest homes and local fairs, presidents of 
colleges and their professors and alumni, brilliant 
society women and men of the clubs, business men 
and manual toilers, were alike charmed by his per- 
sonality and his gifts, and contiime to speak with 
fervor of his abilities and to cherish his fame. 

General Grant said the speech which Judge 
Hmit delivered at a reception given to the famous 
soldier by the city of Cincinnati was the most bril- 
liant and eloquent address he had ever heard. 

[xi] 



xii A Biographical Essay 

Thousands of people declare tliat within their ex- 
perience he was unmatched as an orator. On im- 
portant historical occasions and celebrations of 
epochal events he became the living voice of the 
past and of the passion and sentiment of the peo- 
ple. On the platforms of colleges and universities 
he appeared as the embodiment of culture, learn- 
ing and classic grace. Before the people, and es- 
pecially the farmers whom he dearly loved to ad- 
dress, he uttered appeals that swayed them as the 
heart of one man. In the memories of such as 
heard him even once, and that years ago, he yet 
stands out distinctly amidst all succeeding im- 
pressions like a figaire of light against a back- 
ground of the dark. 

He stirred the symi^athies, won the heart, fasci- 
nated the intellect and charmed the senses. Men 
speak of him in terms that seem extravagant to 
those who did not know him. On account of his 
suavity and dignity, combined with his knowledge 
of the law, lawyers who attended his court com- 
pare him with the judicial celebrities of our own 
land and of Great Britain. On account of his per- 
sonal graces and tact, men and women of the social 
world recall the names of famous gallants as of the 
same quality as himself. In educational circles 
he is placed among the foremost friends of the col- 
leges. Among the masses he is remembered as an 
ideal stump speaker, in the better sense,— as one 
who could imderstand the hearts of the peoi)le and 
appeal to the best in their natures. Such was the 



A Biographical Essay xiii 

combination of his talents and so varied is the 
range of his reputation. 

It is not always that the graceful and hand- 
some beau or the boy orator of the college, becomes 
the earnest worker, the student of history, a last- 
ing social force, or the maker of speeches that in- 
form as well as charm. But Judge Hunt was one 
of the excei^tions, since in youth and in manhood 
he was alike successful in these spheres. He did 
not depend upon the easily won honors of his 
youth for his future, but he became and continued 
a strong and eager toiler in his profession of the 
law and in the dei:>artments of history, literature 
and educational progress. He was not merely the 
boy prince of the village, a meteor to flash across 
the horizon of the campus, but a steadfast star. As 
Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, president of the Armoiu' 
Institute, has declared, "Judge Hunt was one of 
the brightest men Ohio ever produced." 

He descended from worthy ancestors. One of 
these is said to have been engaged with Tyndale 
in his translation of the Scriptures. Others of 
them came to America with Governor Winthrop, 
and are recorded as speakers of general assemblies, 
judges of the courts and as holding still other posi- 
tions of honor and trust in the Colonies. 

Samuel Furman Hunt was born in Springdale, 
Hamilton county, Ohio, October 22, 1814. His 
father, Dr. John Randolph Hunt, was born at 
Cherry Hill, near Princeton, New Jersey, Decem- 
ber 10, 1795. Dr. Hunt was a student at Nassau 
Hall, now Princeton University, and was gradu- 



siv A Biographical Essay 

ated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons 
in New York City in the class of 1825. He came 
soon afterward to Springdale, and for almost for- 
ty years practiced medicine in the upper Mill 
Creek Valley. The father of the physician was 
Oliver Hunt, of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, who at 
eighteen entered, in March, 1777, the American 
service as a minute man in the New Jersey troops. 
He took part in the battles of Long Island, Prince- 
ton, Monmouth and Springfield. 

Dr John Hunt married, on November 4, 1829, 
Miss Amanda Baird, who was born February 20, 
1811, in Freehold, Monmouth county, New Jersey, 
and belonged to an old colonial family. He lived 
until August 1, 1863. A handsome window, repre- 
senting Christ as the Great Healer, was placed to 
his memory by his son Samuel in the Presbj'terian 
Church of Springdale, one of the oldest churches 
in the Northwest Territory. Dr. Himt and his wife 
were greatly beloved and revered by all who knew 
them, he being of high standing in his profession, 
with more than a local reputation, and she being 
possessed of unusual attractions. 

'The venerable Dr. J. G. Monfort, a friend of her 
youth, and editor for many years of the Presbyter, 
wrote of her after her decease, November 24, 1892 : 
"Mrs. Hmit was a notable woman, distinguished 
for her brightness and beauty, her gracefulness 
and dignity. She was in every respect an excellent 
and elegant woman. One thing that has delighted 
her friends and has been proverbial everywhere is 
that her son, Judge Hunt, one of the most eminent 



A Biographical Essay xv 

of the sons of Ohio, has devoted himself to his 
mother's fellowship and comfort for a quarter of 
a century, which we regard as the highest of the 
many honors awarded him. His course has been a 
continuous stream of love and blessing." 

Five children of their household attained mature 
years: Major John E. Hvmt, James Baird Hmit, 
Mrs. Isaac Weatherby, of Trenton, New Jersey, 
Mrs. James Franklin Heady of Glendale, and the 
subject of this biography. 

Springdale, in the boyhood of Judge Hmit, was 
a village of more importance than the census of its 
inhabitants would have indicated. It was on the 
main line of turnpike travel between Cincinnati 
and the north. It was one of the oldest settlements 
in Hamilton coimty and for a considerable time it 
promised to have a future as one of the chief towns 
in this region. The failure to carry out a projected 
plan to have pass through it a main line of railway 
diverted an increase of population, arrested its 
gro-tti;h, but left it a pictm"esque and interesting 
village, which has been the birthplace of a number 
of famous men and the scene of some notable his- 
torical events. Its inhabitants were distinguished 
for their culture. Judge Hunt had the advantage 
of being a member of one of the most cultivated, 
families in the conununity and of a household 
which, according to the standards of that day, was 
exceptionally well-to-do. 

Of his boyhood, some interesting glimpses have 
been given by Mr. Jere M. Cochran, a friend of his 
early days as well as of his later life: "We grew 



xvi A Biographical Essay 

up near one another. Our families were on inti- 
mate terms. Our mothers were close friends, a 
pleasant fact which Samuel never ceased to recog- 
nize. His father was our family physician for 
many years and until his death. The doctor was 
a scholar and a gentleman of the old school and his 
medical practice was of the old fashion. 

"While we were in school at Master Stewart's, 
Samuel was in his sixteenth year. He was a year 
or two my senior and in all classes was in advance 
of me. But I could then observe enough to enable 
me now to say that he cotdd make the readiest reci- 
tations on the least ajsparent labor of preparation, 
of any school boy I ever knew or heard of. It was a 
mark of his character through life to intellectually 
grasp things easily and rapidly and at the same 
time retain them. In after years he could write 
out a political speech, leave the manuscript at 
home for the newspaper printer, and go away 
somewhere and deliver the addi*ess practically 
word for word. 

"One Friday afternoon at Stewart's school it 
came to be essay day ; each boA' was expected to be 
ready with a written composition. Upon investi- 
gation the master found Samuel to be derelict. Ac- 
cordingly the youth was kept at his desk during 
the quarter hour play-spell. After frittering away 
considerable time in half -grumbling, half -jocose 
protestation, he reluctantly turned to his desk. 
During the few minutes the other boys were romp- 
ing about the house, inside and out, I stood beside 
him and watched him. His quUl pen, squeaking 



A Biographical Essay svii 

painfully, flew like liglituiiig over two or three 
sheets of paper. A\^aeu 'books' were called, the 
manuscript, wet and blotted, was submitted. It 
was a hunting sketch. The forest was described, 
the springing grass and flowers, the swaying tree 
tops, the whispering leaves, the singing of little 
birds, the screaming of hawks, the soaring of buz- 
zards, the cawing of crows, the barking of squir- 
rels. We boys thought it very di'oll, picturesque 
and fine, and all right, and wondered how such a 
thing could have been turned out on such short 
order. The master ex^jressed contempt, which per- 
haps was not wholly sincere, evidently expecting 
something better from his brilliant pupil. The 
document passed. 

"Samuel excelled in all things he did, which with 
him, as with most school boys of leisure, consisted 
largely of sports. He was superb with marbles, 
kite and ball, with skates and sled, rod and gun. 
At objects standing or in flight, or on wing or foot, 
he was a fine shot. He had no superior, if an equal, 
in all our region. AVlien he had gTo^^'n to full man- 
hood, he seemed to have lost his hunting enthusi- 
asm, largely because his work and inclinations 
were in other directions, and not a little, I surmise, 
because of, in the kindness of his heart, his love 
and pity for unoffending, persecuted wild things. 

"Wlien he once invited me on a winter hunt, I 
pleaded that I had no gim. He said he would see 
me through. He knew of a neighbor boy having 
a little shot gun, which he thought the boy would 
sell. I bought the gun with my entire fortvme, a 



xviii A Biographical Essay 

three-dollar gold piece. I rode home the proudest 
and happiest of boys, for I had a gim. The great 
hunt came off. The weather was civil, though the 
sky was darkly overcast. In our eyes it was a 
pleasant scene. So was the frosty brown earth un- 
der foot. All day, close together, we roamed and 
lounged over our friendly neighbors' fields. 
Toward evening, as the flooding light of the setting 
smi burst forth in glory over the land, and we, un- 
expectant, were strolling homeward, ujd sprang our 
fii'st and only rabbit. 'Shoot! Shoot!' cried Sam, 
eager to allow me a chance to try my gun. With 
both eyes shut I turned my artillery loose. A twig 
dropped from the top of a haw tree, off to the right. 
I did not say a word to my companion in arms. I 
thought he did not notice it. The rabbit ran a 
short distance, passed through a fence and stopped. 
'Shall I take him,' Sam asked, 'before you can re- 
load and he gets away?' I nodded. He fii'ed and 
Buimy fell. By all the rules of the chase the 
trophy was justly his, but he pressed it upon me to 
caiTy home. 'Unless asked,' Sam said at partuig, 
'you need not tell how you mangled Mr. Prague's 
haw bush.' 

"I believe I heard Samuel Furman Hunt's first 
speech. A Fourth of Jidy celebration was being 
held near Sjoringdale. Our Samuel was to read 
the Declaration of Independence and be followed 
by an orator of note. When the crowd had assem- 
bled he announced that he would prefer to deliver 
an original oration. Wlio would read the Declara- 
tion ? Sam pointed to me, to my great horror. My 



A Biographical Essay xix 

father pressed me into the service. I mounted the 
platform and in a strained voice screamed Tliomas 
Jefferson's defiance to King George of England. 
Following me, the Yoimg Eagle of the Miami Val- 
ley shouted liberty to all the land with thrilling 
effect. One evening afterwards he delivered an 
open-air address in Glendale, and we at our home, 
almost half a mile distant, could hear his ]3ure, far- 
reaching voice clearly and distinguish sentences. 

' ' They who study the history of Samuel Hunt 's 
life will fuid it altogether consistent. While he re- 
mained in health, he lived as much as many men 
live in twice the time. When he was in the zenith 
of his fame, when for eloquence, for grace of per- 
son and action, and pleasantness withal, he was 
second to no orator in the state of Ohio, he was no 
prodigy to those who knew the whole story. While 
yet a young school boy he gave good promise of 
that which was to be. Of him his friends ever ex- 
IJected much, and all he had to give. That he should 
by his great, easy, fortunate triumphs, even with 
his own generosity of spirit, have invited so little 
bitter rivalry, so little en vj^— that was the marvel. 
He found the people, regarding himself, as gener- 
ous as was he. He was a prophet not without 
honor in his own coimtry. His friends, the friends 
of his youth, were heartily proud of him always. 
They grieved for him long, through the slow de- 
cline before he died, and when the news of his 
death came, it was to hearts already sore with sor- 
row and become used to suffering." 

His bright and promising boyhood in old Spring- 



XX A Biographical Essay 

dale being past, the youthful Hunt entered Miami 
University, Oxford, Ohio, in 1860. From the be- 
ginning of his college career, he took an active part 
in the deljates and the literary exercises of ]Miami 
Union Hall. In his sophomore year he was elected 
fifth sessional speaker, in his jmiior year class 
president,— with the duty of signing the diplomas 
of the graduating members,— and in his senior 
year class orator,— these being the recognized 
honors of the literary societies of the university at 
that time. Throughout his college career he was 
president of his class, and for four successive years 
he was chosen by the whole body of students as the 
orator on Washington's birthday. 

Insight into his life during this period is given 
in a letter of his college mate, Mr. William H. Win- 
ters, Librarian of the New York Law Institute of 
New York City. "He was the bright morning 
star of my college days. Lord Byron could never 
meet an old Harrow schoolfellow without a rapid 
beating of the heart and a pleasure so violent that 
it left him almost siDeechless. So it seemed to me 
whenever I met Hunt. And well it might be so; 
for Hunt had made Oxford a sweet home, a place 
of rainbows and roses, a center of beauty, romance, 
high hopes and lofty ambitions. Hunt was a nine- 
teenth century, handsome, boy Bolingbroke, a 
youthful Chesterfield, a prince of boy orators, an 
impressive declaimer and a most charming essay- 
ist. There was the stamp of genius and of perfec- 
tion in his looks and in ever}i;hing he said and did 
w^hich arrested and fixed attention. Once seen, he 



A Biographical Essay xxi 

coiild never be forgotten. I can picture almost to 
the day just liow Hunt looked, what he wore, where 
he roomed, where he dined, his comings and goings, 
his favorite friends, his place in the chapel, his do- 
ings in the literary society, and how at the begin- 
nings of terms and after vacations, we waited at 
Howells 'The Boys' Town,'— Hamilton— for the in- 
coming of the Glendale train and our rejoicing if 
he came back with it. I can remember ahnost 
everji-hing of importance he ever said to me and 
the very words. 

"An amusing incident happened in my day, and 
of which I recently spoke to Col. J. McCook, (a 
D. K. E.) and we laughed heartily over it. At a 
national convention of the Delta Kaj^pa Epsilon 
Fraternity, the Miami representatives were Hunt 
and Woodhull, and the eastern 'Dekes' were aston- 
ished and asked if those two were fair representa- 
tives of the little western college, and had they 
more like them ? More like them "? The like or the 
equals in any respect of Hunt and Woodhull were 
never seen at Harvard or Yale! They were i\Ii- 
ami's jewels and even at Miami they were unique. 

"I have a vivid recollection of their room dis- 
cussions, sometimes of politics and the war, of 
scenes in Congress, of other days and star per- 
formers like Battle, Taylor, Webb and Smith at 
Miami, then of the old English orators and of the 
eloquence of the bar, and counnent and criticism 
on the recent performers in the halls; then of 
Scott, Browning, the last Hugo, Dickens or De- 
Quincey, a Bulwer or Disraeli novel, HaA\'i:horne, 



xxii A Biographical Essay 

Willis or Longfellow, or a favorite D. K. E. author 
like Theodore Wiuthrop. I have listened with in- 
terest and boyish rapture until the midnight hour 
and as I returned to my room with face upturned 
I imagined I was in some strange and novel place 
in Scott's land, Dante's land, Goethe's land or 
Shakespeare's land, and in Amy Robsart days 
when 

'The moon, sweet regent of the skies 
Silvered the walls of Curanor Hall 
And many an oak that grew thereby.' 

It was all romance land and the romance itself 
was Hunt and Woodliull. Many a night I have 
looked up to the lights burning brightly in their 
student room with something of the feeling and 
enthusiasm of the crusader when he first caught 
view of the distant lights that lured and signalled 
and beckoned to him from the towers and temples 
of Jerusalem. 

"When I heard Himt and Woodhull for the first 
time and on the same evening in Miami Union 
Hall, I went liome in silence, face aflame, and 
threw myself on the bed and wept until I thought 
my heart would break, and all because of hopeless 
en\y and despair, 

"Hunt was a miiversal favorite. The Female 
Seminaries schemed and lol)bied openly to secure 
him, the fu'st prize, as escort to the chapel exhibi- 
tions, and he would enter the chapel at night, es- 
corting a i^rofessoress,— with the girls following, 
and all student eyes on him,— with the grace and 



A Biographical Essay xxiii 

gallantly of one in knightly charge of Mai'ie Ai\- 
toinette or Queen Elizabeth. When on an idle af- 
ternoon, we chanced to meet any of the many semi- 
nary girls on their health walks, one of the boys 
would be sm-e to say, 'Don't be foolish, boys, I pray 
you ; don 't be foolish or silly ; don 't take any stock 
in illusions and delusions,— the flushed cheeks, the 
sweet smiles of those sweet girls, the shy waving 
of handkerchiefs are all, all, all for Sam Hunt.' 
What made Hmit under such circmnstances so lov- 
able and popular with the boys'? It was because 
there was not a i^article of malice or envy in him. 
He loved merit anywhere and everywhere. He 
was always doing graceful things in his OAvn in- 
imitable way. Look over the register of Miami 
Union Literary Society and you will find that there 
never was in those days a performance of mieom- 
mon merit without a resolution of recognition and 
thanks being moved by a Mr. Hunt. That was a 
sweet, precious and uncommon tribute to his youth- 
ful influence and power,— the special Hmit Pray- 
ers, in a perilous sickness, offered in the chapel for 
his recovery. And when he recovered there was 
rejoicing by all." 

After nearlj' four years at Miami University, he 
went to Union College, Schenectady, N. Y. His 
college course was completed at Union, of which 
Dr. Eliphalet Nott was then president, and he re- 
ceived the bachelor's degree, and later the master's 
degree, from that institution. He also received the 
bachelor's degree vdVa the class of 1864 of Miami 
University. 



xxiv A Biographical Essay 

His reputation as an orator began at college. At 
that time, as in subsequent years, his addresses 
were of remarkable eloquence and glowing with 
patriotic feeling. The yomig student was a sincere 
believer in the war for the Union, and many of his 
public addresses were made at meetings whose pur- 
pose was to stimulate enlistments in the volunteer 
soldiery of the period. An oration which he deliv- 
ered during that time in Oxford was in memory of 
the Miami graduates who had fallen in battle, and 
it aroused the greatest enthusiasm. He was par- 
ticularly active in the organization of the Eighty- 
third Ohio Eegiment. In April, 1862, he visited 
the battlefield of Shiloh to minister to the wounded 
and dying, and his faithful services at that time 
received the conmiendations of the officers and 
soldiers, as well as the agents of the Sanitary Com- 
mission. In March, 1865, he was with the army of 
the James on the same errand. He entered Rich- 
mond mth the advance of General Weitzel's com- 
mand, he having charge of the supplies furnished 
for the sufferers m that city. He was one of the 
first to enter the city. 

A national phase of the history of Judge Samuel 
F. Hunt, is based on the fact that he was the man 
who haided dovai the Confederate flag from the 
capitol building at Richmond on the day of the 
evacuation of that city by the confederate forces. 
Hunt was an aid-de-camp to General Weitzel, of 
Cincinnati, whose regiment was the first to enter 
the fallen city. L. P. Ezekiel of Cincinnati tells 
the storv of that occurrence in this wav : 



A Biographical Essay xxv 

"'The date was April 3, 1865. I saw the Union 
troops riding up Franklin street and riding at the 
side of the street somewhat in front of the advance 
guard, was a slightly built yovith, whom I after- 
wards knew as Judge Samuel F. Hmit. The Union 
army advanced to Capitol Square, which was filled 
with smoke from the fire made by the destruction 
of the Confederate documents of state. Himt was 
apparently the first to see the Confederate flag at 
full mast. He dismounted hurriedly, dashed up 
the steps and seizing the ropes, pulled down the 
Confederate colors. His action was supplemented 
by another Union man, who w^as on hand with the 
stars and stripes and a few minutes later the flag 
of the country was flying where the flag of the 
South had been displayed a few minutes before." 

During this period when the youthful Hunt was 
amid the scenes of battle, assisting the sick and 
wounded, he also acted as a newspaper correspond- 
ent for one or more Cincinnati papers. His work 
at this time, as well as his series of letters later as 
a foreign correspondent showed him as a success- 
ful wi'iter for the press. 

In Eichmond, after the surrender, he had some 
very interesting and striking experiences. He 
went with Abraham Lincoln through the streets of 
Richmond during that one memorable part of a 
day he was there. In giving an accoimt of this to 
George Alfred Townsend, he said: "Mr. Lincoln 
landed at Rocketts, below Richmond, and, like a 
boy, desiring to see the president, I pushed up to 
his side and walked with him at intervals all the 



xxvi A Biographical Essay 

way up the street. An immense swarm of negroes 
followed tlie marines. A very few soldiers acted as 
a sort of escort. To tell the truth, I expected jVIt. 
Lincoln to be shot every moment of that walk. My 
recollection of Lincoln is that he wore a high silk 
hat, well back on his head. His general garments 
were of the old, long black frock coat, with trousers 
and vest to match, which our forefathers had made 
out of broadcloth, invariably imported from Eng- 
land or France. To me he looked happy. No 
trepidation was in his manner ; no vigilance in his 
conduct. He had consunmiated a mighty work, and 
was the victor in biography over everybody of his 
time. I told him that it was a remarkable moment 
in his life to have come into that city so freshly 
after the great war, when the echo of one govern- 
ment was hardly drowned by the arrival of an- 
other. He looked like an old man, ha\ang been 
well worn, and yet amidst his puckers and wrin- 
kles was the light of the General, like Wellington 
after he had put Napoleon down. Mr. Lincoln 
went up that street attended by the visible race 
which he had set free. They looked upon him as 
the Lord Almighty. Mr. Lincoln turned off to- 
ward the statehouse square, and I said to him, as 
we came in sight of it: 'Mr. President, look there, 
your flag is on their capitoL' Lincoln turned his 
face up and saw the flag floating, in that spring 
weather, from the statf of the state capitol, which 
Jefferson Davis supervised the building of and 
which Jefferson Davis had just fled from. I 
thought Lincoln's face expressed something like 



A Biographical Essay xxvii 

religious devotion when he saw his colors erowiiiug 
that old maisou carre." 

After the completion of his college course, he 
began the study of the law under the late Justice 
Stanley Mathews and in the Cincinnati Law 
School, where he was graduated with the degree of 
LL. B. in 1867. 

In the same year he made a tour of Europe, the 
Holy Land, Arabia and Egypt, from which points 
he wrote letters for the Cincinnati Enquirer and 
the Herald and Presbyter. These were vividly de- 
scriptive, were received with general favor and 
were widely copied. 

In May, 1868, upon his return from abroad, he 
entered upon the practice of the law in the office 
of Henry Stanbery, who had just resigned the posi- 
tion of Attorney-General of the United States to 
take part in the defense of President Johnson in 
the impeachment proceedings before the United 
States Senate. In October, 1869, Mr. Hunt was 
elected by Hamilton coimty voters to the State 
Senate, and was at once made President pro tem- 
pore of that body and acting lieutenant-governor; 
he was the youngest incmnbent of that position in 
the history of the State. He served on the com- 
mittees on the judiciary, on municipal corpora- 
tions, on common schools, and on several other 
committees of minor importance. Among the 
measures introduced by him were a large number 
affecting the interests of Cincinnati, notably that 
establishing the University of Cincinnati, and 



xxviii A Biographical Essay 

those establishing the Park Commission and the 
Platting Commission. 

In 1870, he acted as chairman of the Democratic 
Convention for the Second Congressional District, 
at which time he was tendered the nomination for 
Congress, which he declined. In 1871, he accepted 
the nomination for lieutenant-governor at the 
hands of the Democratic party, and by reason of 
the illness of the candidate for governor. General 
George W. McCook, he was obligated to bear the 
principal burden of the canvass of the state for the 
party. 

In 1873, he acted as chairman of the convention 
that nominated William Allen for governor, and 
subsequently as chairman of the convention nomi- 
nating Thomas Ewing for governor. He was a 
member of the Constitutional Convention elected 
in 1873, which framed a new Constitution for Ohio, 
and was most largely instrumental in having the 
veto power incorporated in the Constitution 
adopted by that body to be proposed to the people. 

In 1878, he was appointed by Governor Bishop 
to be Judge- Advocate-General of Ohio, -with the 
rank of Brigadier-General. Diu'ing his service in 
this position, he prepared a review of the courts- 
martial which has been regarded as the highest 
authority on this subject, and in his published re- 
port he gave a complete history of the state militia. 
In the same year, he was nominated for the judge- 
ship of the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton 
county, and in 1880 he was imanimously nominated 
for Congress by the Democracy of the First Con- 



A Biographical Essay sxix 

gressioiial District. At both elections he ran far 
ahead of his ticket, but was unsuccessful. It is to 
be remembered that Hamilton county has usually 
been a stronghold of the Repul)lican party. 

In 1882, he removed his home from Springdale, 
on accomit of railway facilities, to Glendale which 
is the most beautiful of suburban villages. He 
pui'chased a fine home, which stands midway up 
the wide slope of the gentle incline on which Glen- 
dale is built. His residence is situated between the 
two parks, and is set in a large lawn which is 
planted with many trees. He christened it "Baird 
Oak," after his mother's maiden name and in 
honor of the single oak tree that flourished on his 
grounds amid numerous specimens of other spe- 
cies. His house was lieautified by art and the 
things that come of culture. His library was en- 
riched by many rare and valuable collections. This 
home, in a village of open lawns and parks that 
contain still many of the original "monarchs of 
the forest" as well as multitudes of other trees of 
many kinds, became a well-lvtiown center of hospi- 
ta]:)le entertainment and as a host Judge Hunt was 
at his l)est. 

His family ties were strong. For each brother 
and sister he manifested the most tender affection 
and interest. He took much satisfaction in the 
war record of his brother, Major Jolm Randolph 
Hmit, who attended the Miami University with 
him, and of whom it was wi'itten at the time of his 
death : 

"Major John Randolph Hunt died yesterday 



XXX A Biographical Essay 

morning at Gleudale while on a visit at the resi- 
dence of his brother, Samuel F. Hunt, in the forty- 
sixth year of his age. Major Hmit's early educa- 
tion was acquired in a private school, and subse- 
quently he prepared for college at the Monroe 
Academy. In the autunm of 1860, at the age of 
seventeen, he entered Miami University, and soon 
took an advanced position in the class room and 
excelled especially in debate and in the literary 
societies. T\nien the call came to arms he was 
among the very first to enlist in the University 
Rifles, then organized under the late Col. Ozro J. 
Dodds, and served the term of his enlistment in 
the three months' service in the -Twentieth Ohio 
Regiment as a private until he was promoted to 
Sergeant Major. He was afterward commissioned 
as Adjutant of the Eighty-fii'st Ohio Volunteer 
Infantry and participated in all the engagements 
with his regiment, including the campaign before 
Atlanta under General Sherman, for which he re- 
ceived the rank of Brevet Major for gallantry on 
the field, and was later tendered a position upon 
the staff of one of the Generals in command of the 
Army of the Tennessee. 

"On his return home he engaged in business at 
Sj^ringdale iintil appointed treasurer of the Sax- 
ony Woolen Mills of Trenton, N. J., in which he 
was largely interested. He was more than once 
invited by his party in New Jersey to represent it 
in the Legislature, but he refused all positions save 
that of juror, a place that he insisted should never 



A Biographical Essay xxxi 

be declined by the good citizeu except for the most 
imperative reasons. 

"His death was probably attributable to expo- 
sure and disability incurred in the field at an early 
age, and yet he would not press an api:)lication for 
a pension because of his conscientious conviction 
that he simply did his duty in the war for the 
Union. Major Hunt was of courtly bearing and 
address. He was a gentleman by instinct, and dis- 
carded mean and petty things. His entire life was 
characterized by the highest sense of honor, and 
he leaves to his family and his friends the inestima- 
ble heritage of a good name. Those who knew him 
will regret beyond measure that 'his sun went 
down while it was yet day.' " 

In the year 1887 Samuel F. Hunt declined the 
nomination for circuit judge in the First Judicial 
Circuit. In that same period he was chairman of 
the Democratic State Convention which assembled 
in Dayton, and nominated Thomas E. Powell for 
governor. In 1889, he made the speech of nomina- 
tion presenting the name of James B. Campbell to 
the Democratic State Convention at Dayton as a 
candidate for governor, and he was active and in- 
fluential in securing his election. 

In January, 1890, he was appointed by Governor 
Campbell as judge of the Superior Court of Cin- 
cinnati, to fill the position left vacant by Judge 
William H. Taft, imtil the succeeding April elec- 
tion. In view of that election he was given the 
nomination of his party. The Enquirer gave an 
accomit of his nomination before the Democratic 



xxxii A Biographical Essay 

City Convention under the headlines, "Exciting 
and Entliusiastie from First to Last. Judge 
Hunt's Name Captures the Delegates." The report 
read: "Judge Samuel F. Hunt was tendered a 
most marked compliment. His name when men- 
tioned brought a round of cheers, and the nomina- 
tion for Superior Court Judge went to him with 
hearty acclaim. When the Chairman announced 
as the first thing in order nominations for 
Superior Court Judges, Frank M. Gorman, Esq., 
stepped to the front of the platform and said, 'I 
present as the candidate a gentleman who was cho- 
sen by GoA'ernor Campbell to fill the vacancy 
created by the resignation of Judge William H. 
Taft. He is a man who though yoimg in years is 
old in honors and is regarded as one of the bright- 
est minds that ever sat upon the bench in Hamilton 
county. The man whom I shall name was nur- 
tured a Democrat from his boyhood. He was reared 
in Hamilton county and is endeared not only to 
the democracy of the county but to its whole peo- 
ple. He is a friend who will lend a helping hand. 
He has not the haughty sneer of the lawyer who 
perforce has gained a reputation, but the poor man 
will find in this man a judge who is a Lord Mans- 
field or a John Marshall. Wlien Governor Camp- 
bell was called ujoon to make the appointment to 
fill this vacaiicy he considered well the man whom 
he should select and he selected that man whose 
qualities I have described to you, the Hon. Samuel 
F. Hunt. [Great aj^plause.] Gentlemen, he has 
endeared himself to the people of his county by his 



A Biograp]ik'al Essay xxxiii 

eom-tly mauiier, by his kindly actious, and by his 
benevolence and kindness of heart. He has filled 
many public positions and never yet has he be- 
trayed the trust that was reposed in him. By his 
nomination you will approve the action of Gov- 
ernor Campbell. Nominate this princely man; 
nommate this modern Chesterfield, and the people 
of this city will ratify 3^our decision. ' When Mr. 
Gorman ceased speaking, a delegate moved that the 
rules be suspended and that Judge Hunt be nomi- 
nated by acclamation. A heartier chorus of 'ayes' 
never went up in any convention. The hall rang 
with them and the cheering that followed. There 
were repeated cries for the Judge, but he was not 
present, and the convention was compelled to fore- 
go one of those charming talks for which the dis- 
tinguished gentleman is noted. ' ' 

In April he was elected to the position of Judge 
of the Suj^erior Court of Cincinnati by a large 
majority, for the period of thi'ee years, the unex- 
pired term of Judge Taft. In April, 1893, he was 
again elected for the full term of five years to suc- 
ceed himself. 

A Cincinnati paper said at that time: "Wliy 
should not General Sam Hunt be a winning candi- 
date for governor this fall ? He is a man of ster- 
ling character, the peer of any man in legal at- 
tainments. He is a favorite in Hamilton county, 
and outside of Cincinnati. Everybod}^ has con- 
fidence in him because of his aljle, upright and 
clean record." 

Another editorial said: "The election last Mon- 



xxxiv A Biographical Essay 

day of the Hon. Samuel F. Hunt of Cincinnati as 
judge of the Superior Court of that city, in the 
face of a large Repu1)lican majority, has put Judge 
Hunt to the front as a prominent candidate for the 
Democratic nomination for Governor. Judge 
Hunt is one of the brightest lights of the Ohio 
Democracy and one whom the people, irrespective 
of party, delight to honor. If nominated he would 
be elected." 

The Commercial Gazette said: "Judge Hmit 
was re-elected largely because it was believed that 
under the circiunstances no one should have been 
nominated against him. It is a good way when 
first-class men are on the bench to keep the judici- 
ary, as far as possible, from partisan politics. ' ' 

Judge Himt's prominence at the Bar of Ohio 
and of the United States was shown by the fact 
that he was considered by those high in authority 
as a promising candidate to fill a vacancy, created 
by death, upon the Bench of the Supreme Court 
of this country. In 1892 he was elected President 
of the Ohio State Bar Association, and in 1893 
Vice-President of the American Bar Association, 
and was also appointed a member of the commit- 
tee on legal reform, in place of John F. Dillon who 
had been elected president of the Association. 

In 1872 Judge Himt became a trustee of the 
Miami University, appointed by Governor Noyes 
and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. At the 
end of nine years he was re-apjjointed by Governor 
Foster for the full term ending January 1, 1890, at 
which time he was appointed by Governor Camp- 



A Biographical Essay xxxv 

bell for an additional term of nine years. He 
continued a member of this board mitil his death. 

In 1874 he was appointed a director of the Uni- 
versity of Cincinnati by the common comicil, and 
continued a member of that body by re-appoint- 
ments by the Superior Court imtil his accession to 
the Bench, at which time he retired from the board. 
From 1878 to 1890 he acted as chairman of the 
University board, and also as president of the 
Society of Alimmi of Miami University during the 
years 1887 and 1888, being the orator of the Society 
in 1889. 

Judge Hunt was a member of the Military Order 
of the Loyal Legion, of the Society of the Sous of 
the Eevohition, Governor of the Society of the 
Colonial Wars in the State of Ohio, member of the 
Ohio Ai'chaeological and Historical Society, of the 
Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, and an honorary 
member of the Society of the Sailors and Soldiers 
of the Mexican War. 

He was eminently successful and popidar as a 
lawyer. His unusual facility of expression, which 
enabled him to present the dryest and most matter- 
of-fact proposition in beautiful and captivating 
form, together with his excellent judgment and his 
knowledge of the law, made him very effective in 
the practice of his profession. Dm'ing the years 
preceding his elevation to the Bench, his practice 
was very large, embracing every class of litigation 
and requiring the most arduous and unceasmg 
labor. He was particidarly popular as a consult- 
ing lawyer among the farming population and his 



xxxvi A Biographical Essai/ 

neighbors in the vicinity of the city, a fact which 
sliowed in a niarlced degree tlie high reputation lie 
had for integrity and uprightness. 

Uiion the Bench he was distinguished not only 
for careful and conscientious performance of his 
duties, but also for the dignity of his court and the 
uniform courtesy showai l^y him to all memljers of 
the Bar, as well as to all others who came in con- 
tact with him in his court room. Mr. James R. Pat- 
terson, of Oxford, mentions, in a paper which he 
"UTote for The Miami Student, that Judge Hunt 
made even jury duty in his court room pleasant by 
his consideration and courtesy; many men might 
think this a triimiph of a charming personality. 
In the trial of a case he was usually very quick in 
rendering his decisions, particularly upon points 
of i^ractice, and his thorough familiarity with the 
details of the law in this regard has made these 
decisions carry great weight. 

On the more important matters arising before 
him as a judge he delivered a number of carefully 
l^repared opinions, showing deep thought, earnest 
consideration and painstaking study of the law. 
Several of these decisions are noteworthy as being 
on questions of imusual interest to the connnunity 
at large. All are remarkable for their literary ex- 
cellence as well as for their merits by reason of the 
questions of the law which are decided. Among 
the more important decisions in which Judge Hmit 
rendered opinions are the following : The Cincin- 
nati Inclined Plane Railway Company vs. The 
City and Suburban Telegraph Association involv- 



A Biographical Essay xxxvii 

ing the Trolley System; Scott's Sons vs. Raine, 
Auditor (O. L. T., March 16, 1891), mvolving the 
powers of the City Board of Equalization. His 
associates on the bench of the Superior Court dur- 
ing his time of service were Judges Edward F. 
Noyes, F. W. Moore, J. R. Sayler, Rufus B. Smith 
and William H. Jackson. 

A Cincuinati newspaper commented, while he 
was on the Bench: "The work of the Superior 
Court has never been in as advanced a state as at 
the present time. With the exception of two or 
three which have been given special sittings, there 
is not a motion or a demurrer pending liefore 
Judge Hunt, nor a litigated case which has been 
heard and remains undisposed of. Such a condi- 
tion of things has never before been known in the 
submitted room. In the jury rooms the dockets 
for the day are for trial, and cases but recently 
brought are being disposed of. The number of 
cases filed in this court increases from year to year, 
while the number carried to the general term de- 
creases. It must follow as a natural deduction that 
the work of the Superior Court is not only well up, 
but is being well done. Let this be recognized. ' ' 

Dm'ing an miusually active life in the pursuit 
of his profession, Judge Hunt gave great attention 
to general literature, and particularly to the his- 
tory of his own state. He was in great demand 
throughout Ohio and elsewhere as an orator on 
literary subjects, particularly at various institu- 
tions of learning. Among his literary addresses 
of special note were those delivered at Kenyon 



xxxviii A Biographical Essay 

College, Marietta College, Georgetown College, the 
University of Ciuciiiuati, the Northwestern Nor- 
mal College, the University of Michigan, the Cen- 
tral University of Kentucky, the Ohio State Uni- 
versity, the University of Virgmia, Williams Col- 
lege, and Adelbert College before the annual con- 
vention of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. 

The most important of his historical addresses 
were as follows : Miami Valley, on the site of Fort 
Hamilton ; the Treaty of Greenville, on the site of 
Fort Greenville ; the Campaign of Anthony Wayne, 
on the site of Fort Defiance; the Campaign of 
Scott and Taylor, before the National Association 
of the Veteran Sailors and Soldiers of the Mexican 
War; the Dedication of the Soldiers' Monuments at 
Findlay, at West Union and at Athens, Ohio; the 
Centennial of the Reijublic, at Sandusky; the Re- 
ception to General Grant, at Cincinnati; the Un- 
veiling of the Monument to Garfield, at Music Hall, 
Cincinnati; the Semi-Centennial of the Yoimg 
Men's Mercantile Library of Cincinnati; the Life 
of Charles McMicken, the Fomider of the Uni- 
versity of Cincinnati, before the mmiicipal author- 
ities, at Pike's Opera House; the Laying of the 
Foimdation Stone of the Glendale Lyceimi; the 
Centennial of the Adoption of the Ordinance of 
1787, at Springdale; the Centennial of the Settle- 
ment of Ohio, at Marietta ; the Reinterment of the 
Dead who fell imder St. Clair, at the Centennial of 
Fort Recovery; the American Flag, before the 
Ohio Connnandery of the Military Order of the 
Loyal Legion, at Cincinnati ; Ohio Day at the Co- 



A Biographical Essay xxxix 

lumbian Exposition, at Chicago; and Abraham 
Lincohi, on February 15, 1894, before the people 
of Da\i;on, Ohio. 

He also delivered the centennial oration on 
"The Battle of the Fallen Timbers," on the l)attle 
ground, August 20, 1894 ; the oration on the laying 
of the cornerstone of the new edifice of the Uni- 
versity of Cincinnati, September 23, 1894; the 
oration on the Semi-Ceutennial of the Delta Kap- 
pa Epsilon Fraternity of the United States, at 
New York, December 15, 1894; and he presided 
over the seventeenth amiual meeting of the Amer- 
ican Bar Association, at Saratoga Springs, August 
23-25, 1894. 

At the end of his term as judge of the Superior 
Court of Cincinnati, he determined to retire from 
public life and refused to stand for re-election. 
His health had begun to fail, and he hoped that by 
rest and travel he might regam his accustomed 
vigor. On his retirement from the l^ench in 1898, 
the Weekly Law Bulletin, of Cohmibus and Cin- 
cinnati, said, in part : ' ' His re-election to a third 
term would have been a foregone conclusion, if he 
had so desired, but he preferred to retire. Judge 
Hunt was recognized as one of the airiest judges 
of the state, and his retirement is a loss to the ju- 
diciary of Ohio. His opinions, which are published 
in the Bulletin and later in the Nisi Prius Reports, 
mil always be cited with respect. His recent re- 
fusal to accept another term was a great disap- 
pointment to his many friends. The popularity 
and esteem of Judge Hmit is not confined to his 



xl A Biographical Essay 

OMTi city. There are few la\^yers in Ohio that are 
so well kno\Aai and highly esteemed by the Bar of 
the whole state. The reputation of his eloquence 
coupled with his tact and fine sense of the propri- 
ety of things, years ago created a demand for his 
services on all possible occasions, and he was found 
always ready to be of service whenever his other 
duties permitted." 

For many years he had given time, strength and 
influence on behalf of the University of Cincinnati 
and the Miami University. His friendship was 
greatly appreciated by these institutions. 

On June 12, 1900, at the commencement exercises 
of the University of Cincinnati a portrait of Judge 
Hmit was presented. Dr. Charles A. L. Reed made 
the address in which he said, in part: "Our Pan- 
theon can grant a niche to none more justly than 
to Judge Himt. He it was who as presiding officer 
of the Senate of the State of Ohio secured the 
enactment in 1870 of the law by which the Uni- 
versity became possible. Two years later he ac- 
cepted a membership on the Board of Directors. 
In 1879 he was called to preside over that body and 
continued to discharge the duties of that office with 
unfailing tact and miflinchmg industry during the 
succeeding eleven years. As judge of the Superior 
Court, in the exercise of his appointing power, he 
continued during the next nine years to exert a 
powerful influence upon the affairs of the Univers- 
ity. His vigilance in this regard was constant. 
During the eleven years of his chairmanship of 
the board he never failed to preside at a meeting, 



A Biographical Essay xli 

on occasions traveling hundreds of miles to meet 
what he always recognized as a i^rior and impera- 
tive engagement. It is to be recorded that it was 
in consequence of his initiative and skillful diplo- 
macy that the present superl) site in Burnet Woods 
was secured to the University." The painting mi- 
veiled at this time represents Judge Hunt in the 
act of delivering his historic oration on the occa- 
sion of the laying of the cornerstone of the Uni- 
versity in 189-1. 

In recognition of his long and valualile services 
to Miami University, the trustees of that institu- 
tion made a j^ersonal request for a portrait of 
Judge Himt for its library. At three o'clock on 
Wednesday, June 12, 1901, a life-sized oil painting 
of Judge Hunt was unveiled in the Bishop Chapel, 
in the presence of a large gathering of the alumni 
and other friends of the University. Dr. Tappan, 
at that time President of the University, presided 
and spoke appropriately. The Hon. Oliver W. 
Root, of the class of 1858, made the presentation 
address. President John W. Herrou, LL. D. of 
the Board of Trustees, received the gift on behalf 
of the University. The painting is by C. T. Weljer, 
of Cincinnati, and is highly spoken of by all who 
have seen it. The pose is that of an orator address- 
ing an asseml^lage. 

Of his labors on behalf of the college at Oxford, 
Mr. Winters has written : ' ' He was Miami 's best 
friend, who smnmonecl it from death to life and 
started it anew on a proud career of power and 
usefulness. He gave succor and strength and life 



xlii A Bio graphical Essay 

and wealth to his Alma Mater, and his Alma Mater 
should hold aloft and preserve imperishable the 
beloved record of his peerless love and fame." 

Judge Himt was throughout his life a devoted 
friend of his Greek Letter Society, the Delta Kap- 
pa Epsilon Fraternity. He was prominent for 
many years in the comicils of this organization. 
The Delta Kappa Epsilon Quarterly, in reviewing 
Ms career after his death, declared : ' ' His presence 
was essential to the success of every gathering, and 
his scholarly eloquence graced many a banquet ta- 
ble and public exercise." 

Judge Himt was unostentatiously generous in 
financial help to many institutions, organizations 
and individuals. He did much in a charitable way 
for man,y friends and acquaintances and for the 
poor. ^ATiile engaged in the practice of the law, 
he gave his brilliant services freely to a great num- 
ber of needy people who were unable to compensate 
him. No one applied to him for help without receiv- 
ing assistance in some form. He had ever an open 
hand for worthy causes and people. He inherited 
means and he was successful in financial matters, 
and was always ready to use a due portion of what 
he had in a generous manner. 

His love of home was very marked, as was also 
his devotion to the neighborhood in which he and 
his people dwelt. Mr. Jere M. Cochran has writ- 
ten: "Above all else, above high honors and rich 
offices, above ambition's allurements, our Samuel 
Hunt loved his home and its surroundings. He 
honored and w^as proud of his father, him of Nas- 



A Biographical Essaij xliii 

sail Hall, the dry body, diy, seasoned mind, dry 
wit, the good, kind-hearted friend and doctor of 
GUI" neighborhood. He adored his mother, his 
guide, companion, the sainted being of his affec- 
tion. This he showed in a thousand waj^s. He 
showed it one evening, after a dinner at his G'eu- 
dale home, when he unveiled to her unexpecting, 
failing tearfid eyes a large j)ortrait of he]' wlik-h 
he had caused to be prepared. He loved his neigh- 
bors, everybody, little children, gay young women 
and maids, earnest, middle-aged, and especially 
was he fond of visiting and conversing with old 
people. He had a singadarly clever knack of adapt- 
ing himself to any situation or circumstance. 

"MHiile he loved his o-oai country, and s^anpa- 
thized in the hopes and fears, the sufferings and 
aspirations of good people beyond the seas, his 
motto w^as: 'His first, best country is at home.' 
He never forgot to recognize the friends of his 
youth, however humble. Not so many years ago, 
while he was on the judicial bench in Cincinnati, 
he took occasion to smnmon a number of us plain, 
old-time comitry cronies to form what he lightly, 
rather fondly, styled 'my blue ribbon jury.' He 
never forgot old Springdale, and only to avoid 
great inconvenience did he reluctantly leave the 
village of his birth, his boyhood and his manhood, 
for a home in Glendale. In these two villages he 
spent his whole life. He never lost his ardent at- 
tachment for the Miami Valley. After he had trav- 
elled about the world and had seen many famous 
lands, he enthusiastically declared his home val- 



xliv A Biographical Essay 

ley, with its quiet, fruitful farms, its villages, its 
pretty groves, its winding streams, its bordering 
hills, its school l:»ells and church bells, to be to him 
the most homelike, the most beautiful, the clearest 
on earth. ' ' 

Soon after his retirement from office, his health 
began to decline more and more. For the last eight 
years of his life he was imable to resvune work. 
But his long invalidism had its brighter side. In 
his home he had the loving ministry of his sister, 
Mrs. Heady, and of a favorite niece, Miss Edith 
Weatherby. His indejiendent means enabled him 
to surround himself with whatever he desired. His 
large li])rary provided him intellectual entertain- 
ment. He was accustomed to take long drives daily 
to his farms, or through the streets of his beloved 
old Spring-dale and through the winding, shaded 
avenues of Glendale. He never ceased, while at all 
able to venture out of doors, to greatly enjoy fair 
scenery and the varying aspects of nature. So much 
of the company of his friends as he was strong 
enough to have he ajipreciated to the full. 
Throughout all his trial he was wondrously 
thoughtfid of others and was constantly doing lit- 
tle acts of gracious courtesy by sending flowers, or 
a note, or a pleasant verbal message to his friends 
and neighbors. The last drive he took was to the 
farm at Thanksgiving season for turkeys to be pre- 
sented to his friends, to be accompanied by brief 
but charming little notes. He did not complain of 
his infii-mities, but told his pastor, the Rev. Dr. 
Lehman of Springdale, that "God had given him 



A Biograpliical Essay xlv 

time to think." His friends were comforted by 
the knowledge that the success of the sulf eriug man 
who bore in patience and hope the chastisements of 
the Father was greater and finer than that of the 
strong man in his vigor who won honors and ap- 
plause. 

When the end had come, January 12, 1907, and 
the hour arrived for the last rites, a great company 
of men. and women came who represented every 
class and condition. They gathered from the city, 
the sm'rounding to\^'ns and country to do honor 
to his memory. Men of learning and of high re- 
pute sat with the men of toil, alike in the common 
sentiment of respect and affection for their friend 
who had gone from them. The Hamilton Coimty 
Courts adjourned and attended the fimeral in a 
body. The services were conducted by the pastor 
of the Springdale Presbyterian Chm-ch, the Rev- 
erend Adolph Lehman, D. D., assisted by the 
minister of the Glendale Church. His remains 
were interred in the family lot at the Springdale 
cemetery, the site of one of the first churches of 
the Northwest Territory. 

Perhaps some who knew Judge Hiuit only in 
social circles or who noted chiefly the graces of his 
oratory failed to recognize the more solid attain- 
ments of his mind and character. These were of 
the kind similar to the professor of whom he used 
to tell. Judge Hunt was making a conmiencement 
oration at a well known university. While he was 
speaking he noticed that a gentleman on the plat- 
form kept his eyes constantly fixed on him. When 



xlvi A Biographical Essay 

the speech had come to an end, this gentleman, who 
proved to be the Greek professor, came forward 
with extended hand, with the luiexpected remark, 
"I never saw a coat that fitted so admirably as that 
one you have on. I could not keep my eyes off it. 
It is perfection." Judge Hunt enjoyed this im- 
mensely and used often to repeat this experience. 
Possibly others of his hearers and acquaintances 
saw no more deeply. As it is the penalty of a 
humorist not to be taken seriously even when he is 
in earnest, so it is to some extent the fate of the 
man of social elegance or of oratorical grace to be 
presimied to have no prof ounder qualities. Many 
people listen with their eyes. It is true that the 
very ungainlmess of Lincoln brought out the more 
vividly the beauty of his soul. Perhaps at times 
Judge Hunt was misconceived to some degree by 
reason of his external graces. If so, the solidity 
of the orations in this voliune, read now apart from 
the vision of his presence and the sound of his 
voice, will reveal to aU the real attainments of this 
able man. 

The golden harp of his exquisite eloquence, 
which had entralled multitudes, had been silent for 
awhile, but doubtless in another sphere it is given 
him again to touch its chords to the praise of the 
Creator. The deaf Beethoven, whose soul was full 
of the divine harmonies, said with his last breath, 
"I shall hear." So this born orator, an incarna- 
tion of eloquence, must have felt with rapture of 
expectancy, as he heard the summons to another 
world, "I shall speak again." 



A Biographical Essay xlvii 

His fame as a magician of the spoken word will 
linger long as a sweet melody thi-ougliout this 
region and state and wherever he was kno^^^l. In 
Cincimiati, in Colmnbus, in Dayton, in Oxford, in 
Hamilton, thi'ough all Ohio, in Kentucky, m Indi- 
ana, in Virginia, far and wide, the wizardry of his 
silver voice, his chiselled sentence, his apt and 
chosen words, his rhythmic phrase, his elevated and 
inspiring thought had borne aloft the souls of men. 
His style and mamier were characterized b.y i^er- 
fection. There were molten in his stream of fervid 
oratory all the varied elements that go to make the 
master of the multitude in speech. By careful 
research and thought he made his own the sub- 
stance of his theme. With fiine analysis he brought 
his facts and thoughts into orderly and forceful 
array. As if without labor, from a teeming mind 
stored with the wealth of our mother tongue, he 
brought forth a brilliant host of words and clothed 
his thought ^dth light and color. His words flowed 
like a full and quiet river when no winds blow and 
the sky is reflected in a placid ciuTent swift and 
strong. At times his words smote like hammer or 
a sword. Again, they lilted like a lover's song. 

Through all his elaborate addresses he wove the 
vigor of a brilliant, scintillating mind, and then 
warmed them with the steady glow of passion from 
the central fires of a noble heart and purpose. With 
an erect, shapely and vigorous person, with a hand- 
some and speaking countenance expressive of many 
emotions, with exceptional grace and force of ges- 
tm'e and action, with a fine voice of carrying power 



xlviii A Biographical Essay 

and modulation, with a soul aglow with sympathy 
for his hearers, his cause and mankind, with a 
trained, highly cultivated intellect in touch from 
childhood mth the best in literatiu'e and oratory, 
he stood before hundreds of audiences a prince of 
speakers, unrivalled hi this region and the peer of 
any in the land. He loved eloquence and wor- 
shipped at its shrine ; he held it to be an art of arts, 
a gift of gifts ; and his artist 's soul was untainted 
by recent disi^aragements of its splendors or its 
rank. 

Not only did the fairy of eloquence bend above 
his cradle and touch his lips, but other graces, as 
we have shown, tended this rare soul from his ear- 
ly years. His, too, was the genius of courtesy, of 
unfailing thoughtfulness, of fine jjerception of the 
thing to do and say, of the sympathetic touch that 
makes a chance meeting an event, a transient con- 
versation an abiding memory, a smile, a bow, or 
a brief note a distinction and an honor. His re- 
pute in this regard has become a pervasive influ- 
ence, and the kindly glow of his considerateness of 
others has suffused itself through many lives. It 
survives as a i^erfume in the hearts of all who knew 
him. The heavy weight of pam never for a mo- 
ment caused him to forget ; this, like his oratory, 
was inborn, the natural efflorescence of his fine 
spirit. 

That he from his youth attracted attention by 
his ability and the charm of his personality, that 
he stepped easily and qiiickly into places of honor 
and trust, that he added to the long; roll of Ohio's 



A Biographical Essay xlix 

noted sons a shining name, that he was a member 
of the Ohio Constitutional Convention, State Sen- 
ator, patron of the University of Cincinnati, Trus- 
tee and Chairman of the Board of that institution, 
friend and helper of the Miami University, Su- 
perior Judge, -Judge Advocate General of Ohio, 
with the title of Brigadier Oeneral, we have now 
told. His addresses upon historical subjects con- 
nected with early days in this region are master- 
pieces and classics in their kind, and by them he 
takes rank among the local historians. He leaves 
behind a long series of orations that illuminate 
their themes and have weight and brilliancy to 
smndve and give him permanent place by the 
printed word. Had the body sustained to the end 
the demands of the radiant mind and the impas- 
sioned speech, he would have gone still higher in 
offices of honor. But these were not needed to adorn 
the personality or the talents of this orator and 
gentleman. He had the divine gifts which no of- 
fice can confer or take away. 

But his was not only the distinction of the orator 
or the accomplished man of courtesy. He was 
notably beautiful and lovely as a son, giving to a 
mother, whom he resembled and from whom he 
probably received his temperament, an adoring 
love and devotion full of tenderness beyond that 
of most men. He lavished upon her the wealth of 
his heart, and among his last words were these: 
^'I am going over the sunny hills to meet my 
mother. ' ' His was the same rich and gentle nature 
in his relations as a brother, and he poured out 



1 A Biograpliical Essay 

from the warmth and light of his heart kindness, 
devotion, love upon all the members of his family 
circle. 

This gifted man's nature was crowned by abid- 
ing reverence for religion and for God. He caught 
the light from other spheres. While the old 
Springdale Church in particular was to him the 
Ark of the Covenant and Dr. James was the best 
beloved of the Ministers of the Word, he loved 
the Universal Church, the Great Book wherever 
expoimded, and the feeling of religion was in the 
deeps of his soul. Springdale and the S^jringdale 
Church were to him the warm hearthstone on 
which the family fire glowed, and he desired that 
his dust should lie not in a more stately city of 
the dead, but in the quiet of the peaceful old grave- 
yard there, a spot hallowed by many memories and 
as the resting place of his kindi-ed, and by historic 
associations which were so deeply venerated by 
him. 

The words of the Scriptm-es were as music to 
his ears and strength and solace to his heart. In 
the years of suffering when God 's hand was shap- 
ing the man into the saint, the Bible proved again 
its old power to irradiate the valleys of shadow. 
While he continued to read of current events and 
to maintain a vital interest in the world's affairs, 
he read most during his invalidism in the Word 
of God and religious books, and to him the Great 
Unseen became more and more an open vision. 

Though the strong, musical voice had come to be 
almost a whisper, yet keen sight, alert hearing and 



A Biograplucal Essay li 

acute perceiitiou remained, with the vmfailing 
courtesy and the apt choice of words ; and a clear 
brain watched above the weakened body. Fine 
was the triumph of his spirit, and imfaltering was 
his faith, as the once great orator sat among his 
books, awaiting God's time, his hand to be lifted no 
more in graceful gesture, his face never again to 
glow with inspiring thoughts, and his voice not 
again on earth to melt and move the hearts of 
multitudes. Like Milton in his blindness, he 
waited in hope. Without complaint, with- 
out doubt or question, he accej^ted his flesh- 
ly imprisonment and pain as from God, and 
looked with hope to the moment when a divine 
hand would lift him up and help him "over the 
sunny hills ' ' to the Greater Life, in the company of 
the immortal hosts. He prayed that his robes 
might be washed white from earthly stains, and 
that he might have place among the redeemed. 
Who can doubt but that God, who gave His child 
rare gifts of heart and mind and speech here, has 
a portion for him there, not "imclothed bvit clothed 
upon," with "mortality swallowed up of life." 

Calvin Dill Wilson. 

Note.— The writer of this biography desires hereby to 
acknowledge the assistance given him by Mrs. Heady, Mrs. 
Weatherby, Mr. Charles Hoffman of Glendale, Mr. James 
R. Patterson of Oxford, and indebtedness to the numerous 
sketches of Judge Hunt's life heretofore published and upon 
which he has drawn freely, and to all friends who have 
aided in providing materials and suggestions for this paper. 



THE FALLEN BRAVE 

Solon, the greatest of Grecian philosophers, once 
truly remarked that : ' ' That man was to be worthy of 
the most admiration, who falls fighting gloriously for 
his country." The illustrious dead of every age are 
those to whom the historian has paid his homage, and 
poets have embalmed in thoughts that breathe and 
words that burn. The artistic glories of magnificent 
architecture, stately marble, and lofty arches in former 
days, reminded passing generations of the glory there 
was in sacrificing one's life for his country, and for 
the preservation of liberty. 

We proclaim our veneration for those who immolated 
themselves on the altar of their countiy for the founda- 
tion of this great Eepublic. The names of Warren and 
other patriots have been held in lasting remembrance, 
and their memory embalmed in the affections of their 
countrymen, and if the glory due them is great, should 
we not hold those in eternal remembrance who sacrifice 
themselves for the preservation of our liberties, which 
have been to us as bulwarks of peace and fountains of 
happiness? We regard that as sacred ground, and as 
a Mecca holier than that of the Saracens, where rest 
the last remains of the Father of his Country, and will 
continue thus to do, so long as virtue and valor shall 
be esteemed among men. 

In offering homage, then, to our "Fallen Brave," 
we do justice not only to their memory and our own 

Delivered at the Sessional Exhibition of the Miami Union 
Literary Society, Miami University, March 27, 1862. 

1 [1] 



2 Orations and Historical Addresses 

feelings, but follow a custom which prevailed through- 
out the best times of ancient manners, for the Republics 
of Greece and Rome were thus accustomed to com- 
memorate the virtues of their patriots and sages, and 
although those master states of antiquity have been 
doomed to desolation yet the lives of their great 
worthies shine with undimmed luster; for the lives of 
great men of noble and heroic actions will survive 
when the pyramids of Egypt shall have passed away, 
and will stand forever as lofty beacons amid the wastes 
of time. 

While the heart of every true patriot is thrilled with 
joy at the recent success of our arms, and we see as 
it were the bright sun of the Union's vestured glory, 
let the tears of sorrow be shed over the graves of our 
gallant dead, for many brave sons have fallen, cut off 
in the blossom of their days while yet the vigor of 
manhood flushed their cheeks. Let us pay a tribute 
to our honored dead in all that generosity and homage 
which human hearts can give to courage, beautiful and 
manly. Let the names of those who sacrifice them- 
selves on the altar of their country be cherished as 
were those of the flower of Greece, who went out to 
battle under Miltiades and fell on the plains of Mara- 
thon. Their conduct justly entitles them to all the 
gratitude and admiration of their country. Their 
blood has saved the only true government and will 
keep burning brighter for all time the light and example 
of freedom. Deeply deploring the necessity that has 
washed the soil of our country with the blood of so 
many of her noblest sons, yet the sacrifices made will 
be consecrated in the hearts of our people and will then 
enshrine the names of the patriotic dead as the cham- 
pions of free and constitutional liberty. 



The Fallen Brave 3 

"We lament the loss of the brave and talented Win- 
throp who in early manhood consecrated himself to 
the Republic, and who fell on the field of honor if not 
of success. Let our gratitude for him, like the fire 
which the Persians worship, fed from the pure hands 
of the Vestal Virgins, burn sacred on the altar of mem- 
ory. The country deeply laments when it sees what 
he was and what he might have been. It is not as 
Apollo enchanting the shepherds with his lyre that we 
deplore him, but as Hercules slain in the midst of his 
unfinished labors. We revere the memory of him, 
who, like Warren, the first great martyr in a glorious 
cause, fell on the plains of Missouri with a numerous 
band, who thus sealed their faith and constancy to our 
liberties with their blood. He died as becomes a brave 
man urging his followers on to victory. Hence- 
forth his memory is sacred. Whatever his faults we 
remember them no more. We only bear in mind the 
manner of his death, and feel that it has cast a halo 
back upon the past. He has enshrined his name among 
a host of patriots who have realized on the field of 
honor how sweet it is to die for one's country. In a 
quiet churchyard in the beautiful state of Connecticut 
rest the last remains of the late lamented Lyons. Death 
has hallowed his name and burnished his services 
bright in the memory of his countrymen. It is in their 
hearts and that depth of love of country which dis- 
tinguished every act of his life', his best epitaph may 
be written. Patriotism, Genius, Honor and Courage, 
may all come and strew garlands on his tomb. 

The name of the gifted Baker, senator and soldier, 
orator and poet, will ever be green in the memory of 
his countrymen; he who baptized with his blood the 
land he loved so well on that day of lanavailing glory at 



4 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Ball's Bluff and whose heroism was as unquestioned 
as his transcendent abilities. He fell with the light of 
battle on his countenance, his death being as eloquent 
as his life. History recites his deeds on the battle 
fields of Mexico and the records of the thirty-sixth 
Congress attest his genius and eloquence. He leaves 
in the hearts of his friends the proudest and tenderest 
recollections. The halo of a patriot's martyrdom 
lingers over the seat in the senate and the sunset glow 
of Baker's life brightened the hills and valleys of 
Oregon. 

On the firmament of History, the names of Win- 
throp, Lyons and Baker will form a galaxy resplen- 
dent with their luster. These were jjatriots, who, like 
Captain Nathan Hale when on the scafi^old and about 
to be executed by the British as a spy, exclaimed: 
"I only regret that I have but one life to offer for my 
country. ' ' The trumpets ' clangor and the cannons ' roar 
will no more awaken them. They sleep their last 
sleep. Their gallant spirits have been wafted to 
realms of peace; freed from the battle of life. Let 
their memory be ever cherished, and though they are 
not permitted to stand by us in this great struggle 
for truth and justice, yet their spirits animate their 
countrymen to deeds of noble daring. Theirs are 
higher laurels than ever graced the brow of an Olympic 
victor, who have fallen, but from their positions may 
not have appeared so conspicuous. Some have per- 
ished in the contest; others by the long and laborious 
march ; others by the fever of the camp. They have be- 
queathed to us the immortal record of their patriotism 
and ascended to a higher reward than men can give. 

Looking over our broad land, once prosperous, 
tranquil and happy ; on our beneficent institutions ; on 



The Fallen Brave 5 

the only free govermnent, they may have exclaimed 
with Leonidas in view of speedy and inevitable immo- 
lation on the altar of their country: "But ye rocks of 
Thennopylae— free mountains and happy plains ye 
will remain." In intelligence, patriotism and loyalty 
to country, the history of the world affords no brighter 
examples. They have merited all the effusions of 
gratitude which their country should ever be ready to 
bestow on the champions of its rights and its safety. 

The green graves of our soldiers, in the deep 
shadows of the woods or on the broad hill sides of 
the valley of the Potomac are sad and touching spec- 
tacles. The loss of those fields is forgotten in the 
blaze of heroism with which they were defended; for 
humanity surrendered what valor had so gallantly 
contested. Nobly did they fulfill their destiny. Des- 
perate courage and heroic fortitude served only to 
gild with tints of glory the bloody picture of their fate. 
They fell there because of their patriotism, and the 
epitaph which marked the spot where the immortal 
three hundred fell at Thermopylae might well be 
inscribed to commemorate their deeds : "Go stranger, 
and at Lacedaemon tell, that here in obedience to her 
laws we fell. ' ' They have gone to the union of kindred 
spirits, and those who perished for the formation of 
our government, and those who may fall for its pres- 
ervation, we trust will reap congenial joys in the 
fields of the blessed. 

Among the green hills of Virginia and the lonely 
dells of Kentuckj% on the fertile plains of Missouri 
or among the gushing mountain streams of Tennessee, 
their dust awaits the morn of the resurrection. There 
in lonely quietude after life's fitful fever they sleep 
well. There they sealed their faith and constancy to 



€ Orations and Historical Addresses 

our liberties with their blood. There our soil was 
drenched with the commou blood of many, who, their 
hearts glowing with patriotism and hope, fell in the 
defense of their country. There many a noble head 
was laid low and many an eye which shone and flashed 
proudly was dimmed in death. There were bright 
hojjes and blasted expectations. Bitter tears were 
there shed and dying sighs were there heaved. There 
was no friendly hand to stauuch that wound from 
which the red current of life flowed freely. No one 
to bathe that temple which has ceased to throb forever. 
There are wives, mothers, and sisters who would gladly 
have braved the leaden hailstorm of battle to minister 
to the dying soldier, to cheer him, far from the loved 
ones at home. Let such console themselves that it is 
sweet and becoming to die for one's country, and that 
the spots where the life blood of the free has been 
poured out are altars sacred to the high recollections 
of freedom. The armed legions that now march to 
battle disturb not their slumbers and the autumn winds 
may chant their last dirge as they sleep in the enemies' 
land. Green be the turf above them. 

Sons of Freedom, sleej) ou, among the everlasting 
hills, by the ceaseless murmuring of waters. The song 
of the wild bird, emblem of liberty, may chant your 
eternal lullabies. There may the poet and patriot pay 
a tribute of honor and affection and the hand of friend- 
ship cherish the flowers that fringe the lonely graves 
where the brave rej^ose who have died in the cause of 
their country. There laurels may freshen in eternal 
bloom on their sepulchers, and there may we, like 
Sir Robert Bruce when he knelt at the chancel stone 
which covers the remains of his departed friend Sir 
William "Wallace, at the graves of our heroic dead 



The Fallen Brave 7 

swear eternal vengeance against the enemies of our 
country. 

When our Union shall again be restox'ed to its orig- 
inal purity ; when temples of the living God shall arise 
where now ascends the smoke of camp fires ; when the 
flowers of summer and the golden and wavy harvest 
shall again spread over a thousand valleys, and our 
hill tops be vocal with the ecstasies of peace, commerce 
will then be busy, wealth, science and art may multiply 
their monuments all around, but let them not encroach 
on the sacred precincts of their burial places. Cherish 
them as hallowed shrines where the remotest de- 
scendants of the pure and free may come and strew 
garlands over their tombs and listen to the holy melody 
of night winds as they sigh a perpetual requiem over 
the graves of our "Fallen Brave." 



MIAMI'S HONORED DEAD 

The Swiss peasants, for five hundred years after 
the establishment of their independence, assembled on 
the spots consecrated by the valor of their ancestors, 
and spread garlands over the graves of their fallen 
warriors, and prayed for the souls of those who had 
died for their country's freedom. May we not, with 
equal propriety, on this occasion pay a tribute of re- 
spect to Miami's honored dead in all that generosity 
and homage which human hearts can give to courage, 
beautiful and manly ? May not a tear of sorrow be shed 
for her brave sons, who, in early manhood consecrated 
themselves to the Eepublic and have fallen in the 
morning of life— their harvest of glory ungathered? 

"If there be on this earthly sphere, 

A boon, an offering Heaven holds dear 

'Tis the last libation that Liberty draws 

From the heart that bleeds and bi'eaks in her cause." 

They exhibited a fidelity to country equalled only by 
that of the gallant Decatur, who, as he lay wounded 
on the gory deck of his vessel, lifted his shattered ai'm 
to heaven and exclaimed with his dying breath: "May 
my country always be right; but my country right or 
wrong. ' ' 

Their existence was indeed transitory, yet the soft 
memory of their virtues lingers like the twilight hues 
of sunset and we are left but to muse on their faded 
loveliness. May we not fancy that as they sank, their 

Delivered in the Chapel of Miami University, February 
23, 1863. 

[8] 



Miami's Honored Dead 9 

disenchanted spirits arose and are this day mingling 
with us. 

Miami may point to her honored dead as did Cor- 
nelia, the Roman matron, to her sons, and be proud 
of her jewels— gems more brilliant than ever decked 
the coronet of queenly beauty or blazed in the halls 
of royalty. The halo of a patriot's martyrdom lingers 
over the seats once occupied by them, and the sunset 
glow of their lives brightens the history of their Alma 
Mater. The dews of heaven descending may have 
mingled with the death damp which gathered on their 
brows, yet let us hope that gentle spirits brought con- 
soling memories to their dying hours, and anticiiDations 
bright and beautiful clustered around their souls as 
the sands of life ebbed swiftly away. In lonely 
quietude, after life's fitful fever, Miami's dead sleep 
well. They had the martial tread of the gallant de- 
fenders of the Union. Sons of Miami! Sleep on, 
where the soft cadence of songsters and the holy 
melody of night winds may chant your perpetual 
requiems. 

We shall love to think of Miami's dead and fancy 
for them a future as bright and beautiful as did the 
primitive inliabitants of Mexico for their fallen war- 
riors, who immediately passed into the presence of the 
Bun — whom they accompanied with songs and choral 
dances in their bright progress through the heavens, 
and after some years their spirits went to animate 
the clouds and singing birds of beautiful plumage and 
to revel amidst the rich blossoms and odors of the 
garden of Paradise. The green turf that fringes their 
lonely graves shall not be greener than their memory 
and our affection for them not less fragrant than the 
wild flowers that bloom above their tombs. The names 



10 Orations and Historical Addresses 

shall live embalmed in sweetest fancies and our recol- 
lections of them shall burn sacred on the altar of 
memory, and so long as this anniversaiy shall be re- 
turned to us and its dawn blazons and its eve purples 
the gorgeous folds of our country's banner as it floats 
proudly over us. May its lingering tints light with 
mellow radiance those hallowed spots where rest 
Miami's honored dead. 



MIAMI UNION LITERARY SOCIETY 

In addressing you more particularly on this occa- 
sion permit me to indulge in an expression of thank- 
fulness for the kindness so frequently manifested to- 
ward me since my connection with your organization. 
Especially shall this last testimonial of esteem from 
the young gentleman with whom I have so long and so 
pleasantly associated be embalmed in my heart of 
hearts and shall always be cherished as the brightest 
memory of my collegiate days — the realization of my 
academic aspirations. On this, our annual literai'y fes- 
tival, the past and future are brought together— the 
prospective and retrospective. Our flattering antici- 
pations are mingled with recollections of sadness. Our 
laurels are wreathed with cypress. The white rose of 
Miami Union might well be twined with ivy. When 
memory this evening would recall the names of Cap- 
tains Olds, Harter and Dunn there comes a melancholy 
response ' * Dead upon the field of honor. ' ' Than theirs 
no nobler libation has been offered to liberty. They 
were mirrors in which we might well model and fashion 
ourselves to pure disinterested love of country. A 
fragrance sweeter than the wild flowers which deck 
their graves shall always cling around their memories, 
exhaled from the clustering virtues which beautified 
their characters. Our remembrance of them shall be 
as ehaplets of amaranth — greener, nobler, than ever 

Delivered before the Miami Union Literary Society, Miami 
University, at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Exhibition, Decem- 
ber 21, 1863. 

[11] 



12 Orations and Historical Addresses 

decked the brow of Olympic victors. Friendship sheds 
tears of sorrow over the graves of departed genius and 
worth. Friends ! Brothers ! Patriots ! Farewell, fare- 
ye-well forever ! 

"Light be the turf of your tomb, 

May its verdure like emeralds be, 
There should not be the shadow of gloom 
In aught that reminds us of thee." 

One question, says a great philosopher, I ask of 
every young man which with undivided soul he follows. 
Has he aim? Whether that aim be a right one or a 
wrong one forms but iny second question. Young gen- 
tlemen, have that one great aim— one grand idea of 
practical good and bend all the energies of your soul 
to its accomplishment. Desultory firing had but little 
elf ect upon the legions of Napoleon, but under the con- 
centric fire of the two hundred and forty pieces of the 
Archduke Charles artillery, the eagles of France wa- 
vered. Would you drink the Pierian rather than the 
Lethean springs, waste not your efforts on base ignoble 
objects. Commodus who descended sword in hand into 
the arena against a wretched gladiator armed only 
with a foil of lead, and shedding the blood of his help- 
less victim, struck medals to commemorate his inglor- 
ious victory, is not worthy of imitation. Emulate 
rather the example of the gallant Douglas, who, having 
thrown the heart of his departed friend Sir Eobert 
Bruce far into the ranks of the infidels with the sublime 
expression, "Onward thou noble heart as thou wast 
wont," pressed bravely forward for its recovery. 
Mark not time but march forward in the cause of truth. 
Go as patriots, not as conscripts. Enlist in the flying 
artillery rather than in the invalid corps. At the blast 



Miami Union Literary Society 13 

of bugles the walls of old Jericho tumbled down — it 
will require more than an exercise of lungs to success- 
fully storm the intrenchments of ignorance. Wage a 
determined crusade against the opponents of human 
advancement until you plant the standard of victory 
in the very camp of the enemy. Be progressive; let 
the invisible of to-day be the visible of to-morrow if 
you, like Aladdin in the cave, would wander in the sub- 
terranean gardens of thought and gather immortal 
fruits. Posterity as a just creditor demands of you in- 
dividually, in specie payment, in genuine merit, the 
highest excellence you are capable of attaining. In 
view of your advantages, your liability will be great. 
Be originators not imitators. The statue of Jupiter 
of 01ymi3us was an elegant imitation of life, yet that 
was not the Jupiter which thundered in the valleys, 
the subduer of the Titans, the liberator of the Cyclops. 
The representation in marble of the fighting gladi- 
ator was perfect in sinew and muscle, yet it was in- 
efficient in the conflict, powerless in the arena. Be 
useful rather than ornamental. Beau Brummel was 
graceful in the dance and possessed all the effeminate 
accomplishments of an Adonis, yet he was not great. 
He was a shadow, not a substance. Shadows may 
amuse, they will not benefit. Let not your lives be like 
those little angels, which, according to tradition, are 
generated every morning by the brook which rolls over 
the flowers of Paradise, whose life is a song, who 
warble till sunset, and then, without regret, sink back 
into nothingness— gone and are forgotten. But exert 
an influence among your kindred and your countrymen 
that "the toll of your funeral bells will not drown, 
nor the green sods of your grave muffle. ' ' Let Miami 
Union Hall be the Trojan horse whence shall go forth 



14 Orations and Historical Addresses 

none but real men. Be practical rather than theoret- 
ical ; actual rather than ideal. For 

"In action are wisdom and glory, 

Fame, immortality — these are its crown; 
Would 'st thou illume the tablets of story? 
Build on achievements your hope of renown." 

Young gentlemen, be true to yourselves, to your 
country and to your God, and may the smile of Him 
who resides in the heaven of heavens be upon you, 
and against your names in the volume of His will may 
happiness be written. 



FACULTY OF CINCINNATI LAW SCHOOL 

Gentlemen of the Faculty: 

In behalf of the young men of the Cincinnati Law 
School I bid you a cordial welcome to the festivities 
of this occasion. "When Justinian closed the schools 
at Athens, we are told that the followers of Plato and 
Aristotle, as a mark of their veneration and esteem, 
lingered around the porticos and groves which had 
been consecrated by the genius and eloquence of the 
old philosophers. In the same spirit we proffer our 
greetings to-night. To instruct young men in that 
science which is defined to be the perfection of reason, 
to inculcate those principles of civil polity which under- 
lie all human governments, to teach them to redress 
wrong, to vindicate the right, to defend the oppressed, 
and to i3repare them for a profession in which Lord 
Mansfield and Kent, and Story and John Marshall 
spent their lives, is a high calling. It is a 
work that contributes no less to the in- 
dividual than to the state, for Cicero tells us 
that in Rome even the boys were required to 
commit the twelve tables to memory, that they might 
early become familiar with the laws of their country, 
and Ben Jonson described the Inns of Court, the 
law schools of his day, as the noblest nurseries of 
liberty and humanity in the kingdom. Those wise 
republicans thought well for the future of Lacedaemon 

Address of Welcome to the Faculty of the Cincinnati Law 
School at a Banquet given at the St. Charles, May 18, 1867. 

[15] 



16 Orations and Historical Addresses 

when they offered Antipater their old men as hostages 
for the fulfillment of a distant engagement, but refused 
him even half the number of their children, lest they 
might be prejudiced against her institutions. 

The profession of law is an honorable one. It em- 
bodies the experience of ages; it comprehends the in- 
tellect of centuries. The system of jurisprudence is 
the garnered wisdom of a thousand years. Its deci- 
sions affect the rights of unborn generations. The 
courts of to-day but repeat the rulings of Lord Coke, 
as he sat in judgment more than two hundred years 
ago. 

The Pandects have survived the works of antiquity, 
and when Rome had ceased to rule the world by the 
arms of her legions, she governed by the spirit of her 
laws. We remember Justinian as the legislator rather 
than as the emperor. 

When he reunited Italy and Africa, he did less for 
posterity than when he gave us the Institutes. The 
Code Napoleon will live long after the clicking of sabers 
at Austerlitz will be forgotten; when its author was 
sacrificed at Helena the code remained. It is this pro- 
fession, then, and the one which you now adorn, to 
which we aspire. We are emulous of success there; 
and because of the preparation that we have received 
from you, we feel that we are the better qualified for 
it. The relation of instructor and instructed will not 
be severed without a regret on our part, and it may 
not be inappropriate at this time to express an acknowl- 
edgment for the dignified courtesies that have always 
characterized your efforts in the lecture room. 

We shall not forget the associations begotten by the 
friendly intercourse of the past two years. Again, in 



Faculty of Cincinnati Law School 17 

the name of these young men, whom I am called upon 
to represent, and, because of the estimate of your per- 
sonal excellence and worth, I extend to you a thrice 
welcome here this eveniue:. 



LAW AND MEDICINE 

In the celebrated Criminal Code of Charles V. of 
Germany, in 1532, known in the history of jurispru- 
dence as the Caroline Code, it was first enacted that 
the testimony of physicians in medical questions should 
be received in courts of justice. It is true that the 
Eomans even at the time of Numa based many of their 
laws on the authority of the doctors, but this was 
practically the first formal recognition of that science 
which applies the principles and practice of the dif- 
ferent branches of medicine to the elucidation of 
doubtful questions in a court of law. To-night when 
we mark the good of Fortinio Fidelis (1602) and 
Paul us Zacchias (1584) and notice how the feeble spark 
of their time has been blown into a flame by such 
minds as Fodere (1764) and Parr and Beck and Ray 
and Wharton; when we consider the perfection of 
the system of Toxicology, first demonstrated by Orfila 
in the action and tests of individual poisons as they 
relate to animal life, we are impressed with the 
progress and development of the system of medical 
jurisprudence. Those great hands, indeed, set down 
the corner stones of the temples and palaces of this 
master science and laid deep the foundations upon 
which the coming years will erect structures of un- 
rivalled magnificence. The Greeks had their Asclepeion 
from which the streams of medical science flowed not 

Delivered at the Annual Commencement of the Miami 
Medical College at College Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio, February, 
1872. 

[18] 



Law and Medicine 19 

unlike our own colleges, and the work of the coroner 
of that day was performed by Antistius, who reported 
to the authorities, after holding an inquest over the 
remains of Julius Ctesar, that of the twenty-three 
wounds which the body had received, the one that had 
penetrated the thorax, between the first and second 
ribs, alone was fatal, but it remains for this age to 
witness the application of the principle of medical 
science to the determination of the most important 
questions in our courts. 

The profession may not have reached that exquisite 
nicety predicted by Mandeville, when the uroscope will 
enable the physician to diagnose in the product of a 
Sunday the religion, and in that of a week day the 
politics of a patient, yet the time has come when medi- 
cine and law are found hand in hand in the furtherance 
of the ends of justice. Between the two professions 
there should not only be the alliance of friendship, but 
there is also the alliance of necessity. There is 
between them the Siamese attachment of mutual in- 
terest. The science of medicine has now become abso- 
lutely necessary with that of the science of law in 
determining questions affecting the loss of life from 
injury, as well as the many questions of disqualifica- 
tion for social and civil duties. The lawyer is designed 
to serve man in his social or relative state; the phy- 
sician to serve him in his individual or absolute state. 
One practices in the various branches of commercial 
law; the other in the various departments of physi- 
ological law. The physician must study the physical, 
the emotional, and the mental forces which go to make 
up the man; the lawyer studies him only in relation 
to others. One profession views man as a component 
part of a great social organism, as a member of society 



20 Orations and Historical Addresses 

with obligations and duties and privileges; the otlier 
views him as a single individual being who prefers life 
with its disappointments to death with its uncer- 
tainties. In a word the science of medicine deals with 
man in detail : the science of law deals with him in 
the aggregate. One considers the individual, the 
other considers society. Those men stand forth in 
the glory of usefulness who accomplish most for hu- 
manity. For this reason it is doubtful whether that 
profession which saves men from death to which 
disease is hurrying them is not greater than that which 
saves an innocent client now and then from the gallows. 
We have only to notice the advance made in the 
legal test of insanity to appreciate the humanizing in- 
fluence of medical testimony. It has been held within 
one hundred and fifty years that the test in criminal 
cases is whether the party was totally deprived of his 
understanding and memory and did not know what 
he was doing more than a wild beast. This was the 
opinion substantially held by such eminent jurists as 
Lord Coke and Lord Hale. In this opinion they were 
guided by the best medical authorities of the day, for 
it will be noticed in the books that Lord Hale carefully 
makes use of the language of medical men. It was in 
this way that defective medical theories upon questions 
of insanity became incorporated into common law prin- 
ciples. Opinions merely medical and pathological in 
their character, relating entirely to questions of fact 
and full of error, as science now demonstrates, acquired 
the force of judicial decisions. It is often difficult 
in fixing resi^onsibility to ascertain whether one may 
have a mental disease and whether the act in question 
was the result of that disease. These difficulties arise 
from the nature of the facts to be investigated and 



Law and Medicine 21 

not from the law; they are practical difficulties to be 
solved by the jury and not legal difficulties to be 
solved by the court. It is the promise of medical 
science to solve these difficulties by tracing the effect 
of mental disease on the powers of the mind ; to follow 
insanity in its pathological as well as in its psycho- 
logical relations. In the Roman law the insane or de- 
mentia are divided into two classes— the menti capti 
and the furiosi; the French and Prussian codes make 
use of the terms dem,ence, fureur and imhecillite; the 
English common law recognizes but two kinds of in- 
sanity—idiocy and hmacy. It remained for the medi- 
cal experts of our own land to so trace the disorder of 
the mind from furiosi to that of questionable sanity, 
that henceforth "emotional insanity" must be recog- 
nized as belonging to the American code. This has 
been held to be of such a temporary character that 
it lasts only while the finger of the murderer is upon 
the trigger of the pistol that sends the bullet to the 
heart of the victim. 

What is most needed and what the administration of 
justice, as well as the interests of society most demand, 
is some clear, well defined term in the expression of 
scientific truths, as well as enlarged practical infor- 
mation relative to the subjects to which they beloug. 
The legitimate goal of all inquiry in the medico-legal 
domain is the endowment of human life with new in- 
ventions and new riches. 

Society demands of the medical profession the high- 
est intelligence in medico-legal subjects, for the trial in 
court is often followed by the trial before the bar of 
public oi^inion. In listening to the voice of humanity 
and the ajopeal to sympathy, the profession cannot 
afford to forget the higher obligations to true science. 



22 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Jean Paul said, "Schiller and Herder were both 
destined for physicians, but Providence said No! there 
are deeper wounds than those of the body, and so 
they became authors." Jean Paul forgot that physi- 
ology is just as important as psychology and that there 
is no higher calling than that of the philanthropist 
measuring some form of human suffering and devoting 
the energies of his life to its amelioration or removal. 

Medicine is a ministry as well as a mission. Society 
asks that all her educated young men and yoimg women 
should come to her bringing the philosophic spirit; 
that love of fundamental truth : that desire to know the 
cause of things; that wish to escape from the chain 
of superstition and prejudice; that insatiable love of 
the true and the good which so ennobles the scholar 
and which so empowers the present to shower blessings 
upon the future. This spirit brought into the pro- 
fession of medicine casts its mantle of dignity over 
all alike and leaves the world to sometimes doubt 
which is the more honorable— the physician at the bed- 
side or the practitioner at the bar. The will must 
be firm, the heart patient, the aspirations passionate 
to secure the fulfillment of some high and lofty pur- 
pose. 

It is not sufficient that the graduate should be sent 
forth with microscope, stethoscope, uroscope and plexi- 
meter and omniscient of fevers. The proper object of 
clinical studies is not to prescribe alone, for Radcliffe 
used to say that when young he had fifty remedies for 
one disease, and when old he had one remedy for fifty 
diseases; and Dr. James Gregory is responsible for 
the statement that young men kill their patients, old 
men let them die. The highest test of medical skill 
is to produce in the animal economy those operations 



Law and Medicine 23 

which nature is observed to excite as the means of 
restoration. The true physician assists processes of 
nature. 

The path of duty must be followed with all humility, 
for the egotism of man dies away just as he beholds 
the glory of God. It is not permitted one to know 
everything. Newton felt that he had only picked up 
a few shells by the great seashore, and it is told of 
Aristotle that, after having acquired more learning 
than was possessed by all those of his age, he grew sad 
of heart because it was not permitted him to know 
what caused the flow of the tide of Euripus. 

Let Medicine and Law, then, go hand in hand in ex- 
tending character and sjTupathy and in advancing the 
cause of Right and Justice. 



CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE 

[From Debate of the Ohio Constitutional Convention, Tliursday, 
January 29. 1874.] 

Me. Hunt : Mr. President, the committee having in 
charge the duty of expressing in an appropriate man- 
ner the regard of this Convention for the late Presi- 
dent, have directed me to report the resolutions which 
have just been read, as indicative not only of the sense 
of this committee, but, as there is reason to believe, 
of the sentiment of the entire body. 

Chief Justice Waite bears with him from the chair 
which he has honored as presiding officer to the one 
which has been occupied by Jay and Rutledge, and Ells- 
worth and John Marshall, the sincere respect and af- 
fectionate regard of all with whom he was officially 
associated. It is said that the little creature called the 
ermine is so sensitive to its own purity that it becomes 
paralyzed at the slightest touch of defilement upon its 
snow white fur. It is emblematical of judicial in- 
tegrity. The hunters spread with mire the paths lead- 
ing to the haunts toward which they draw it. It will 
then submit to be captured rather than defile itself. 
It prefers death to dishonor. We feel assured that a 
like sensibility will characterize him when he comes to 
assume the judicial ermine. He now has great oppor- 
tunities, and greatly will he fill them. We trust that 
after long years of usefulness to his country in a posi- 

Remarks in the Ohio Constitutional Convention on the 
Report of the Committee in Reference to the Appointment 
of President Morrison R. Waite, as Chief Justice of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States. 

[24] 



Chief Justice Waite 25 

tion which has been filled by the mightiest names in 
American history, some new Erskine, speaking to the 
people of a later generation, will say of him, as was 
so well said of Lord Mansfield, "This great and hon- 
orable magistrate has so long presided in this great 
and high tribunal, that even the oldest of us do not 
remember him with any other imj^ression than as the 
awful form and figure of Justice." 



THE VETO POWER 

Mr. President: 

There is no principle so essential to free constitu- 
tional government as the limitation placed upon the 
executive, the legislative and the judicial branches. In 
the formation of the federal constitution it was recog- 
nized as the basis of all government. The necessity of 
reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by 
distributing and dividing it into different departments, 
each the guardian of the public good, was considered 
by all of the earlier statesmen. They were careful to 
designate the attributes of each department, and to 
insert terms of limitation and exclusion. They as- 
signed to the different departments their respective 
powers. The great object of a written constitution is 
to keep the various branches of government as separate 
and distinct as possible, and for this reason restraints 
are imposed. This idea has become fixed in the national 
sentiment and in the national character. It has been 
incorporated into every state constitution. These re- 
straints are necessary to secure permanency and sta- 
bility in the administration of public affairs. The pres- 
ervation of our political well being— both state and 
national— depends upon these distinctions and limi- 
tations. Eveiy department of government is then 
alike under the same obligation to defend the consti- 
tution and the laws. The powers of each, although 
separate and defined, are still united in advancing 
and promoting the public good. The principle of bal- 

Delivered in the Ohio Constitutional Convention, February 
4, 1874. 

[26] 



The Veto Power 27 

ance in the organization of government must be kept 
in constant operation. This is the history of all gov- 
ernments where the royal will is not the supreme law. 
Centralization of power becomes political despotism. 
In all the monarchies of western Europe, during the 
middle ages, there existed these restraints on the royal 
authority. Kingly power must be tempered by funda- 
mental laws and representative assemblies to render 
the administration of justice uniform throughout the 
land. It is in this country that there has been applied 
to a republican form of govermnent the true principle 
of limitation whereby each department may be kept 
within its proper sphere of action. The judiciary must 
be separate from the executive and legislative branches, 
and provide for the decision of private rights wholly 
uninfluenced by reason of state, or considerations of 
party or policy. It is the glory of the British consti- 
tution to have led in the establishment of this im- 
portant principle. It is the theory of the constitution 
to restrain the legislature and to subject their acts to 
judicial decision whenever it appears that such acts 
infringe constitutional limits. In the absence of such 
a check, no certain limitation could exist in the exercise 
of legislative discretion. Power is of an encroaching 
nature, and should be effectually restrained from pass- 
ing the limits assigned to it. 

When the courts of justice go beyond the work of 
construing and applying the principles of law, they 
no longer become the citadel of popular liberty and the 
temples of private justice. When the legislature 
usurps the power of the executive— as well as the func- 
tions of the judicial department— there is no longer 
any protection against illegal or unconstitutional acts. 
When the executive assumes the prerogatives of the 



28 Orations and Historical Addresses 

legislative and judicial departments, and the "will of 
the Prince" becomes the law, there is no further se- 
curity for private rights and the upright administra- 
tion of justice. It has been well said by Madison, that 
"the accumulation of all power, legislative, executive 
and judicial, in the same hands, whether of one, or 
few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, 
or elective, may justly be tenned the very definition 
of tyranny. ' ' 

The veto power is necessary in our system of gov- 
ernment to maintain this idea of limitation and the 
independence of each department. The framers of 
the federal constitution contended that it was not in- 
consistent with republican institutions, and made it a 
part of the organic law. The same reasoning will ap- 
ply to the state constitution. The power of self- 
defense is as necessary as the right of self-defense. 
The theory of limitation of power can not be main- 
tained so long as one of the co-ordinate departments 
of government is not strong enough of itself to assert 
its independence within the strict limit of constitu- 
tional enactment. The judiciary is vested with the 
l^ower of a negative in declaring unconstitutional the 
acts of the legislative assembly. The executive should 
be vested with the power of a qualified negative in a 
revision of the acts of the legislature on the ground of 
their impolicy, as well as their unconstitutionality. 
The effectual organization of the several departments 
of government is the surest guarantee against the en- 
croachments of the other departments. It is only 
when the executive, the legislative and the judicial 
branches shall each be armed with a power sufficient 
within itself that the system of balance can be main- 
tained. "Experience," said one of our ablest political 



The Veto Poiver 29 

thinkers, "has taught us a distrust of that security, 
and that it is necessary to introduce such a balance 
of powers and interests as will guarantee the provisions 
on iDaper." It is not alone in the separation of the 
powers of government, but in tlie ability to assert 
their individuality, that we have the surest guarantee 
of governmental protection. Personal liberty can 
have no security without it. There is never any pro- 
tection for freedom when there is nothing that limits 
or restrains the exercise of arbitrary will. Chief Jus- 
tice Marshall, in the celebrated case of Marbury vs. 
Madison, says : * ' The constitution is either a superior 
and paramount law unchangeable by ordinary means, 
or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, 
like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall 
please to alter it. If the former i^art of the alternative 
be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitu- 
tion is not law ; if the latter part be true, then written 
constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of a 
people to limit a power in its nature illimitable. ' ' 

The veto power invests the executive with a defense 
and strength not inconsistent with the principles of 
representative govermnent, and enables that depart- 
ment to defend itself against encroachments. There 
must be an efficient executive. There must be a dignity 
and an independence attaching to the office. The in- 
dependence should be important enough to manifest 
itself; it should be strong enough to defend itself. The 
Federalist thus speaks of these powers: " * * * 
The insufficiency of a mere parchment delineation of 
the bovmdaries of each has also been remarked upon, 
and the necessity of furnishing each with constitu- 
tional arms for its own defense has been inferred and 
proved. From these clear and indubitable principles 



30 Orations and Historical Addresses 

result the propriety of a negative, either absolute or 
qualified, in the executive upon the acts of the legisla- 
tive branches. Without the one or the other the 
former will be absolutely unable to defend himself 
against the usurpations of the latter. He might grad- 
ually be stripped of his authority by successive reso- 
lutions, or annihilated by a single vote. And in the 
one mode or the other, the legislative and executive 
powers might speedily come to be blended in the same 
hands. If even no propensity had ever discovered 
itself in the legislative body to invade the right of the 
executive, the rules of just reasoning and theoretic 
propriety would of themselves teach us that the one 
ought to possess a constitutional and effectual power 
of self-defense." There can not be, said Montesquieu, 
any liberty where the legislative and executive powers 
are united in the same person, or body of magistrates. 

The veto power is necessary to prevent legislative 
encroachments. In the convention which framed the 
federal constitution there seemed to be no question as 
to the necessity of some limitation upon the powers of 
the legislature. All agreed, as Mr. Gorham said in 
that body, that there should be some cheek upon the 
legislative branch. The only question was whether the 
negative on laws should be limited or absolute, and 
whether it should be intrusted jointly to the executive 
and the judiciary. Madison insisted that it would be use- 
ful to the judiciary department by giving it an addition- 
al opportunity of defending itself against legislative en- 
croachments, and would be useful to the executive in 
inspiring additional confidence and firmness in exer- 
cising the revisionaiy power. 

The history of the federal congress, as well as the 



The Veto Power 31 

general assemblies of all the states, shows the neces- 
sity of settled limits to legislative discretion. The 
Ordinance of 1787, which has exerted such a mighty 
and permanent influence upon the people of the north- 
western states, prohibited legislative interference with 
private contracts and secured to the people, as an 
inalienable inheritance, the benefit of habeas corpus, 
of trial by juiy, of judicial proceedings according to 
the common law, and of a representative government. 
This prohibition has been to a great population the 
safeguard of the public morals and of individual rights. 
The future of this people will show that more is to 
be feared from legislative usurpation than from exec- 
utive interference. This is the tendency of all repub- 
lican government. The legislative department derives 
a superiority in the state, as well as in the national 
government, from the very nature of its organization. 
Its constitutional powers are at once more extensive 
and less susceptible of definite limits. It can, there- 
fore, with the greater facility invade the limits of 
the other departments of government. The legislature 
controls the public funds. It carries with it great 
force of i^ublic opinion. The representatives of the 
people are frequently brought in contact with one an- 
other and with their constituencies. The people are 
seldom on their guard against legislative encroach- 
ments. The history of the English parliament proves 
most conclusively the tendency of all legislative bodies. 
It has absorbed the whole power of the English gov- 
ernment. Blackstone, in alluding to its influence, re- 
marks: "The power and jurisdiction of parliament, 
says Sir Edward Coke, is so transcendent and absolute 
that it can not be confined, either for causes or persons, 
within any bounds. * * * It hath sovereign and 



32 Orations and Historical Addresses 

uncontrollable authority in the making, confirming, 
enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, revising, 
and expounding of laws concerning matters of all pos- 
sible denominations, ecclesiastical or temporal; civil, 
military, maritime, or criminal; this being the place 
where that absolute despotic power which must, in all 
governments, reside somewhere, is intrusted by the 
constitution of these kingdoms. All mischiefs and 
grievances, operations and remedies, that transcend 
the ordinary course of the laws, are within the reach 
of this extraordinary tribunal. It can regulate or new 
model the succession to the crown, as was done in the 
reign of Henry VIII. and William III. It can alter 
the established religion of the land, as was done in a 
variety of instances in the reign of King Henry VIII. 
and his three children. It can change and create afresh 
even the constitution of the kingdom and of parliament 
themselves, as was done by the act of union and the 
several statutes for triennial and septennial elections. 
It can, in short, do everything that is not naturally im- 
possible to be done; and, therefore, some have not 
scrupled to call its power, by a figure rather too bold, 
the omnipotence of laarliament. ' ' 

The future danger to our free institutions lies in 
that direction. It does not require the spirit of proph- 
ecy to predict it. We have more to fear from a long 
parliament than from a Cromwell. Ciesarism is not 
of this day nor of this generation. The conventions 
which recently framed the constitutions for the great 
central states of Pennsylvania and Illinois realized this 
growing tendency in the administration of the govern- 
ment by placing additional restrictions upon the law- 
making department. It has been well said in the Mad- 
ison papers, "that exi^erience in all the states has 



The Veto Power 33 

evinced a powerful teudency iu the legislature to ab- 
sorb all power into its vortex. This was the real 
source of danger to the American constitution, and 
suggested the necessity of giving every defensive au- 
thority to the other departments consistent with re- 
publican principles." 

When France adopted universal suffrage as the basis 
of her representation, Lamartine remarked in its favor 
that it was the strongest basis which any government 
could adopt, by reason that all occasions for revolution 
were extinguished when a people can, at all times, 
legally adapt public measures to their own will. The 
veto power enables the people to legally adapt public 
measures to the public will. It is simply an appeal to 
the people as supreme arbiter. It is a reference to 
the ballot box. Its exercise can enact no legislation. 
It can defeat no policy demanded by the public in- 
terest. The tenii of the executive is so limited that 
in the event of withholding assent from a measure 
required by public necessity, the people can pass upon 
it at the next election. The approval of the people 
can make it a law. The history of all federal and state 
legislation proves most conclusively that the preroga- 
tive will not be exercised to the injury of the public 
good. There is more danger to be apprehended from 
the passage of an unwise law than from the i^ostpone- 
ment of judicious legislation until public sentiment 
can be considered. The mistaken application of the 
veto power can only delay for a time that which may 
be improperly delayed. It is not the one-man power. 
It is rather every man's power. It is not a kingly pre- 
rogative, but one of the highest privileges that per- 
tains to a free people. The qualified negative is less 
of the monarchy than of the republic. No measure 

3 



34 Orations and Historical Addresses 

demanded by public sentiment can be defeated by the 
exercise of the veto power. This was well illustrated 
in the attempt to abolish the continuance of the nobil- 
ity by the Norwegian diet in 1828. The veto i:)0wer is 
vested in the king, but if three successive diets repeat 
the decree, it becomes a law without the royal assent. 
In this respect it is a qualified, and not an absolute 
negative. The king, on two occasions, had disapproved 
of the law passed by the parliament against the fur- 
ther continuance of the nobility, but the third diet con- 
firmed the decree of the two fonner sittings, and it 
became the law of the land, notwithstanding the royal 
negative. There is a power higher than governor, or 
president, or king, and this power will ultimately pre- 
vail. It is the judgment of a free people. De Tocque- 
ville, in his Democracy in America, in commenting 
upon our institutions, says of the veto power: "The 
president, moreover, is provided with a suspensive 
veto, which allows him to oppose the passing of such 
laws as might destroy the portion of independence 
which the constitution awards him. The struggle be- 
tween the president and the legislature must always 
be an unequal one, since the latter is certain of bearing 
down all resistance by persevering in its plans; but 
the suspensive veto forces it at least to reconsider the 
matter, and, if the motion be persisted in, it must be 
backed by a majority of two-thirds of the whole house. 
The veto power is, in fact, a sort of appeal to the 
people. The executive power, which, without this se- 
curity might have been secretly oppressed, adopts this 
measure of pleading its cause and stating its motives." 
Congress considered the force of this appeal to the 
people when in 1832 it presented to President Jackson 
the bill for the re-charter of the United States Bank 



The Veto Power 35 

at the time he was a candidate for re-election. "I 
have now done," said he, "my duty to my country. 
If sustained by my fellow citizens, I shall be grateful 
and happy; if not, I shall find in the motives which 
impel me ample grounds for contentment and peace." 
The exercise of the veto power is further designed 
to prevent hasty and inconsiderate legislation by sub- 
jecting it to the revision and judgment of the exec- 
utive. It is evident that much of our legislation is 
enacted in haste, some of it through passion; and much 
of it through great carelessness. It is not an absolute 
and an arbitrary power. It is only an intimation of 
dissent to what the executive considers impolitic or un- 
constitutional legislation. The governor is elected 
by the people of the whole state. The commonwealth 
is his constituency. The office represents the sover- 
eignty of the people. To that department properly 
belongs, in the name of the people, a supervision over 
every bill before it becomes a law. Laws may be un- 
wise, laws maj^ be dangerous, laws may be impolitic 
when passed by a temporary majority in times of 
public excitement and moved by violent prejudice. If 
such legislation be subjected to some revisionary 
power, there will be an opportunity to counteract, by 
the weight of opinion, the improper views of the legis- 
lature. Wise legislation will not be defeated. Unwise 
legislation may be arrested until thei'e is an expression 
of popular will. The separation of the legislature 
into two houses, each with a different constituency, 
and the necessity of the concurrent vote of both houses 
to an act of the general assembly, were all intended 
to prevent inconsiderate and unwise legislation. The 
constitution of the state further provides, as an addi- 
tional check against immature measures, that every 



36 Orations and Historical Addresses 

bill shall be fully and distinctly read on three different 
days, unless in case of emergency three-fourths of the 
house in which the question shall be pending shall 
dispense with the rule. Sectional feeling and local 
prejudice may enact such legislation as will not stand 
the test of calm reflection and deliberate judgment. A 
wise student of history has said that "the most valu- 
able additions made to legislation have been the en- 
actments destructive of former legislation." 

The disapproval of the executive is not personal; 
it is of the people. It belongs to the ofiSce, not to the 
individual. "WTien properly exercised it becomes the 
safeguard of popular rights. It fastens no policy of 
legislation ujDon the state. It is the voice of the people 
speaking through the representative of the whole peo- 
ple. Instead of the kingly power, its proper use be- 
comes the authoritative power of the peoi^le. It 
originated in the very idea of protecting the public 
against oppressive legislation. It is intended to guard 
the citizen against the passage of bad measures through 
haste, inadvertence or design. Justice Story, in his 
Commentaries on the Federal Constitution^ thus speaks 
of the veto power in this connection : 

"In the next place, the power is important, as an 
additional security against the enactment of rash, im- 
mature, and improper laws. It establishes a salutary 
check upon the legislative body, calculated to preserve 
the community against the effects of faction, precipi- 
tancy, unconstitutional legislation, and temporary 
excitements, as well as political hostility. It may, in- 
deed, be said, that a single man, even though he be 
president (or governor), can not be presumed to 
possess more wisdom, or virtue, or experience, than 
what belongs to a number of men. But this furnishes 



The Veto Poiver 37 

no answer to the reasoning. The question is not, how 
much wisdom, or virtue, or experience, is possessed 
by either branch of the government, though the exec- 
utive magistrate may well be presumed to be eminently 
distinguished in all these respects, and therefore the 
choice of the people; but whether the legislature may 
not be misled by a love of power, a spirit of faction, a 
political impulse, or a persuasive influence, local or 
sectional, which, at the same time, may not, from the 
difference in the election and duties of the executive, 
reach him at all, or not reach him in the same degree. 
He will always have a primary inducement to defend 
his own power; the legislature may well be presumed 
to have no desire to favor them. He will have an op- 
portunity soberly to examine the acts and resolutions 
passed by the legislature, not having partaken of the 
feelings or combinations which have procured their 
passage, and thus to correct, what will sometimes be 
wrong from haste and inadvertence, as well as design. 
His view of them, if not more wise, or more elevated, 
will, at least, be independent, and under an entirely dif- 
ferent responsibility to the nation, from what belongs 
to them. He is the representative of the whole nation 
in the aggregate; they are the representatives only of 
distinct parts; and sometimes of little more than sec- 
tional or local interests." 

The exercise of the veto power is as well demanded 
in the state as in the federal system. The same 
tendency in legislation exists in the one as in the other. 
The history of all state governments demonstrates that 
the errors committed in legislation proceed from the 
fact that the members are not unwilling sometimes 
to sacrifice the comprehensive and permanent interests 



38 Orations and Historical Addresses 

of the whole state to the particular and separate in- 
terests of the constituencies which they represent. 

It has been urged by the gentleman from Pickaway 
(Mr. Page), that the veto is a relic of the Stuarts and 
the Norman conquerors. It is true that the Stuarts 
made it an instrument of oppression by withholding 
their assent from beneficial laws until parliament 
would increase the royal prerogative; yet since the 
accession of the house of Brunswick, the negative has 
not been exercised. It is no argument against the 
principle itself that it has not been applied. It is suf- 
ficient that it has been frequently exercised in our 
own country in the interests of the people. The very 
organization of the English government prevents the 
necessity of a royal negative on the acts of parliament. 
The power vested in the crown has not been exercised 
since 1692. The legislative power of Parliament has 
almost become omnipotent. Royal authority, through 
the ministry, can so direct the proceedings of parlia- 
ment as to accommodate the wants and necessities of 
the crown. The house of commons is of itself the 
representative of public opinion. The fact that re- 
sponsibility in public affairs is taken away from the 
monarch and vested in a cabinet which changes with 
public sentiment, never creates an emergency for the 
exercise of the royal negative. A want of confidence 
in the ministry is followed by an appeal to the people, 
and England to-day is agitated from center to circum- 
ference by the adherents of D 'Israeli and Gladstone. 
The king, too, retains his position for life, and his 
veto is not susceptible of a review by the people on a 
vote of two-thirds of the legislature. The greatest 
danger to which the English constitution is now ex- 
posed is from the omnipotence of parliament. The 



The Veto Power 39 

crown itself is even at its mercy. It depends very 
greatly for its existence upon tradition and the power 
of patronage and i^referment. Even the courts of law 
are subject to parliament, and the separate branches 
of the legislative deiiartment, on several occasions, 
have asserted their sui^eriority over the judiciary. 
Each house has claimed large, if not unbounded im- 
munity from the jurisdiction of the law courts, and 
the latter have hesitated lest they should be intruding 
upon the privileges of parliament. In the English gov- 
ernment an absolute legislature makes what law it 
will, and the crown can not interfere in any way what- 
ever without the possibility of revolution. The judges 
have no power to say of any law which has passed 
through the form of an enactment, that it has not the 
full force of law. In our own country these relations 
are almost reversed. The legislature may make laws, 
but it is comjietent for the supreme court to pass upon 
them as being in excess of the powers of the law-making 
branch as defined by the constitution. The aiathority 
of the supreme court is only limited by the sovereignty 
of the people as expressed in the constitution, or as it 
may hereafter be expressed in solemnly ratified amend- 
ments to the organic law. The founders of the Ee- 
public expressly intended that this great court, con- 
sisting of members holding for life, should be and 
remain the standing giiardian of the charter of the 
nation, raising its august front above the designs of 
politicians and the shifting changes of parties. In- 
deed, the whole structure of our government is so dif- 
ferent from that of England, where the executive is 
not elective, that no argument can be drawn from the 
fact that the veto power has not been exercised for 
nearly two hundred years. 



40 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Wliile it is an essential element in all free govern- 
ments that the majority should rule, it is as necessary 
that the majority should govern according to certain 
restrictions. If a different rale should prevail, our 
legislative bodies would soon degenerate into parlia- 
mentary despotism like that of the long parliament 
in England, or the constituent assembly in France. 
The right of the majority to rule exists only by virtue 
of civil, and not of natural law. It is conferred by 
force of positive enactment. We live under a govern- 
ment of law in principle, and not under a government 
of will, whether of the majority or the minority. There 
are certain fixed rules by which all legislation must 
be determined. If these limits may be passed at any 
time by those intended to be restrained, there is no 
longer any necessity for a written constitution. The 
veto is calculated to protect the rights of the minority 
against the aggressions of the majority. The expe- 
diency or unconstitutionality of a measure is not tui'- 
questionable which is opposed by one-third of the mem- 
bers of a legislative body. It affords the minority an 
opportunity of being heard, for it assumes the char- 
acter of a mere appeal to the legislature itself. It 
simply asks for a revision. It is in the nature of a 
rehearing. It is a reconsideration. Where a measure 
is opposed by a strong minority, it may well claim the 
most considerate judgment. The idea that the veto 
is a "monarchical institution" had advocates when the 
minority attempted to assert its privileges in the con- 
stituent assembly in France. President Harrison, in 
his inaugural address, urged the protection of the mi- 
nority as one reason for favoring the exercise of the 
veto power. "I consider the veto power, therefore, 
given," said he, "by the constitution to the executive 



The Veto Power 41 

of the United States solely as a conservative power 
to be used only, first, to protect the constitution from 
invasion ; secondly, the people from the effects of hasty 
legislation where their will has been probably disre- 
garded, or not well understood ; and thirdly, to prevent 
the effects of combinations violative of the rights of 
minorities. ' ' 

The veto had its origin in the defense which liberty 
made against oppression. It did not come from the 
crown, but from the people. It was the demand for 
the enforcement of rights. It was the protest against 
the conunission of wrong. In early Rome, where it 
originated, it was the stand of the plebeian against the 
patrician. It was the first attempt of the common peo- 
ple toward securing their liberties. The people con- 
tended that they should elect magistrates whose per- 
sons should be held sacred and inviolate, to whom they 
could commit the protection of their rights. These 
magistrates were the tribunes. They stood between 
the people and the oppression of power. The tribunes 
could prevent the discussion of any question. Their 
power was almost absolute. They could arrest, by the 
utterance of the word "veto," almost the entire ma- 
chinery of government. The negative was unqualified. 
When it was properly used it was the measure of 
the people for the protection of the people. It was 
the assertion of the right of the oppressed. It was 
the liberty of the plebeian against the tyranny of the 
patrician. The person of the tribune was held sacred. 
The decree of the senate bowed to its supremacy. The 
power of itself in its origin assisted in the redress of 
wrongs as well as in the maintenance of liberty. It 
limited royal authority and the decree of the senate. 
When the tribunitian power and royal supremacy be- 



42 Orations and Historical Addresses 

came united — like the centralization of power in all 
governments— it overthrew the liberty of the citizen. 
In the hand of the tribune— the sei^vant of the people- 
it was the exponent of the people's will. In the hand 
of imperial authority- — ^and separate from the people 
—it became the instrument of despotism. It was only 
when the Emperor Augustus had the tribuneship con- 
ferred upon him that the veto power became concen- 
trated with imperial authority, and the liberty of the 
citizen was made subject to arbitrary will. 

The framers of the federal constitution were almost 
unanimous in the opinion that the executive should 
have a revisionary power over the acts of the legisla- 
ture. The English executive had a negative on the 
acts of parliament, and the colonial governors on the 
colonial legislatures. The jDOwer of veto was recog- 
nized as an essential element in the formation of the 
government. There was a sentiment in the convention 
in favor of constituting the Judiciary a part of the 
revisionary council. Madison contended, as has been 
said before, that this power would be useful to the 
judiciary department by giving it an additional op- 
portunity of defending itself against legislative en- 
croachments, and would be useful to the executive by 
inspiring additional confidence and firmness in exer- 
cising the revisionary power. Luther Martin, on the 
other hand, insisted that it would bring the two de- 
partments under the influence of each other, and would 
commit the judiciary against the constitutionality of 
the disapproved bills. An absolute negative was ad- 
vocated by Wilson, of Pennsylvania, and Alexander 
Hamilton. It was opposed by Franklin, Madison, 
Sherman, Mason, and Butler, of South Carolina. The 
proposition of Mr. Gerry to intrust a limited negative 



The Veto Power 43 

to the executive was adopted by a vote of eight of the 
states. Connecticut and Maryland alone voted in the 
negative. Mr. Bedford, of Delaware, was the only 
member of the convention to oppose it in debate in 
any form. It was at first ordered that a two-thirds 
vote could overrule the revisionary check of the exec- 
utive, but this was afterwards changed to a three- 
fourths vote. The two-thirds provision was finally re- 
stored, and the veto power, as expressed in the seventh 
section of Article 1, became a part of the federal con- 
stitution, which has been the model for our state con- 
stitutions, and which for nearly three generations of 
men has stood the judgment of posterity and com- 
manded the approval of the American people. 

The fact that the veto jiower has not become a part 
of the state constitution— while nearly every other 
state has adopted it in some form— may be attributed 
to the abuse of the power by Governor St. Clair. In 
the year 1789 the first congress passed an act recog- 
nizing the binding force of the Ordinance of 1787, and 
adopting its provisions to the federal constitution. 
Before the year 1795 no laws, strictly speaking, were 
adopted. They were generally passed by the governor 
and judges to answer particular public ends, while in 
the enactment of others, including all the laws of 1792, 
the secretary of the territory discharged the functions 
of governor under the authority of an act of congress. 
In 1792 congress jjassed another act giving the gov- 
ernor and judges authoritj^ to repeal, at their discre- 
tion, the laws by them made. The ordinance provided 
that upon giving j^roof to the governor that there 
were five thousand free males, of full age, in the ter- 
ritory, the people should be authorized to elect repre- 
sentatives to a territorial legislature. The two houses 



44 Orations and Historical Addresses 

were to constitute a territorial legislature with power 
to make any laws not rejjugnaut to the federal con- 
stitution or the Ordinance of 1787. The judges were 
thenceforth to be confined to purely judicial functions. 
The governor was to retain his appointing power, his 
general executive authority, and have an absolute nega- 
tive on all the legislative acts. The power of the gov- 
ernor was even more absolute than before. Governor 
St. Clair, on the nineteenth day of December. 1799, 
terminated the first session of the legislature. In his 
speech he enumerated eleven acts to which in the 
course of the session he had thought fit to apply an 
absolute veto. Six of the eleven acts then negatived 
related to the erection of new counties. These were 
disapproved for various reasons, but principally be- 
cause the governor claimed that the power exercised 
in enacting them was vested by the ordinance in him- 
self, and not in the legislature. This abuse of the 
veto power excited much dissatisfaction among the 
people, and the bitter controversy which followed be- 
tween the governor and the legislature as to the extent 
of their respective powers, had a tendency to 
strengthen the public discontent. 

The second session of the territorial legislature as- 
sembled at Chillicothe. The unpopularity of Governor 
St. Clair was manifested in the debates and the votes 
in answer to his speech. A remonstrance relative to 
the mode of exercising the veto power was presented 
to him on behalf of both houses, to which he returned 
a long and labored reply. The governor claimed to 
be a co-ordinate branch of the legislature, vested with 
full discretion to decide on the propriety and expe- 
diency of all their acts, placing his own opinion, in 
every case, in opposition to the judgment and ex- 



The Veto Power 45 

perience of both houses. Many of the acts which he 
refused to approve were demanded by public senti- 
ment and the interests of the people. The exercise of 
this arbitrary discretion prevented the enactment of 
important legislation. The action of the governor 
created a bitter controversy. The two houses had re- 
spectfully requested him to return the bills he could 
not approve before the close of the session, with his 
objections, so that it might be in their power to remove 
any objections by amendment. In his reply, the gov- 
ernor said: 

"As to your request, gentlemen, that when any bill 
or bills may be presented for approbation, which may 
not be approved, I shall return them in ten days to 
the house where they originated, with the objections 
I may have to them, I am sorry to tell you that it is 
altogether out of my power to comply with it. The 
ordinance for this government has placed in the gov- 
ernor an absolute negative on the bills of the two 
houses, and you request that it may by me be con- 
verted into a kind of qualitied negative. You do not, 
indeed, require that should the objection be thought 
of little weight, your acts may become laws, without the 
governor's assent, that would have been too directly 
in the face of the ordinance ; though without it, I must 
own I cannot see any use in sending the objections to 
you." 

The differences between the executive and the legis- 
lature increased until they terminated in his removal 
from office before the expiration of the territorial 
government. 

The first constitutional convention of Ohio, which 
assembled on the first day of November, 1802, at C'hil- 
lieothe, refused to incorporate the veto power in the 



46 Orations and Historical Addresses. 

organic law. The abuse of its exercise and the course 
of Governor St. Clair— like the Stuarts in withholding 
their assent from beneficial laws— j^rejudiced the con- 
vention against its adoption. It was regarded as an 
arbitrary infringement on the rights of the people. 
The territorial governor was not an elective, but an 
appointed officer. His authority had frequently con- 
flicted with that exercised by the territorial repre- 
sentatives of the people. The framers of the first con- 
stitution, to some extent, were influenced by the feeling 
which the course of Governor St. Clair had provoked 
in the abuse of the veto power. In Michigan, where 
the same feeling for the same cause existed, the veto 
power was not vested in the executive in framing the 
organic law. The dissatisfaction with the governor 
even manifested itself in a remonstrance addressed to 
congress, against the unqualified veto so arbitrarily ex- 
ercised, over the acts of the legislature and against 
the exclusive right he claimed of dividing and sub- 
dividing counties, after they had been created and 
organized by himself without their concurrence. The 
second constitutional convention of Ohio, which as- 
sembled in 1851, considered the question of vesting 
the power of veto in the governor, but finally rejected 
the measure by a small majority. It is safe to assume 
that the prejudice which early obtained in the history 
of the state influenced in some degree the action of that 
body. We have realized, in the experience of the past 
twenty years, the necessity of additional restraints, in 
the legislative branch, against the encroachments of 
concentrated wealth and power. 

It is not enough to say that the people have suffered 
no inconvenience from a want of the exercise of this 



The Veto Power 47 

power. It is not enough to say that the present con- 
stitution, without this provision, has stood the test 
of twenty years and has become interwoven with our 
habits and our associations. It should be recognized 
that we occupy our present position at the call of a 
great people, and the obligation imposed upon us of 
framing a constitution and a fundamental law not for 
the past, nor alone for the welfare of our present popu- 
lation, but for the generations that shall come in the 
future. In this age of imj^rovement and rapid ad- 
vancement in material development— in this age of 
progress and concentration of influence and power- 
there is a greater necessity for care in our legislation. 
It is a question of no small moment to what extent 
these great corporations so rapidly increasing in wealth 
and power can be controlled by legislative action. If 
they are kept under the reasonable control of the gov- 
ernment, they may accomplish the purposes of their 
organization and prove a blessing to civilization, and 
not destructive of government. There must be greater 
care under these influences if the state would main- 
tain that honorable regard for private rights and 
public morals which now characterizes her legislation. 
We must not only act for the present, but for the 
future, and the possibilities of that future. It has 
been well said by Jefiferson, in his Notes on Virginia, in 
speaking of the growth of power: "Nor should our 
assembly be deluded by the integrity of their own pur- 
poses, and conclude that these unlimited powers will 
never be abused, because themselves are not disposed 
to abuse them. They should look forward to a time, 
and that not a distant one, when corruption will have 
seized the beads of government, and be spread by them 
through the body of the people, when they will pur- 



48 Orations and Historical Addresses 

chase the voices of the people, and make them pay the 
price. The time to guard against corruption and 
tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us. 
It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to 
trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall 
have entered." 

All government to operate uniformly must be the 
government of reciprocal control. Law of itself is 
but limited liberty. There should be the greatest free- 
dom to every citizen consistent with social order and 
the public good. The constitution is simply the will 
of the people expressed through an organization by 
balanced power. The state can well lay claim to the 
warmest affection and the noblest zeal of every citizen. 
In that spirit it should be our highest duty to frame a 
constitution wise, strong and durable, and which in its 
practical operation will secure to us and to those who 
shall come after us the blessings of peace, liberty and 
good government. 



CENTENNIAL OP THE REPUBLIC 

The wisest statesman of France of his day, more than 
a quarter of a century before the declaration of Ameri- 
can independence, informed the cultivated world that a 
free, prosi^erous and great people were fonuiug in the 
forests of America. If Moutes(juieu could stand with 
us to-day, on the one hundredth anniversary of our 
freedom, he would indeed realize that a great people 
had formed in these forests. A nation unites in recog- 
nition of the princijile of civil and religious liberty, and 
in memory of those who established them. In the calen- 
dar of other countries there are days sacred to sover- 
eign, or soldier, or statesman, but this anniversary 
alone in all history commemorates the beginning of 
a great peojile and is sacred to the cause of liberty. It 
is a day which belongs to a greater country than ever 
prophesied in the Sijirit of Laivs, and to a people joined 
together in the bonds of a common citizenship by the 
strong and invincible attraction of Republican freedom. 
It awakens the memory of the early struggle of the Re- 
public, when the thirteen colonies, uniting in a solemn 
pur^jose, declared for the equality of man, and pledged 
their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for 
the mutual defense. It is a day when forty millions of 
people, animated by a higher and nobler sentiment than 
mere fealty to party or section, recognize that they are 
citizens of one nationality whose histoiy is a common 
heritage, whose prosperity is a common blessing, and 

Delivered at Sandusky, Ohio, July 4, 1876. 
4 [49] 



50 Orations and Historical Addresses 

whose honor it is their sacred duty to vindicate. This 
anniversary is the bond of a common patriotism, bind- 
ing together a whole country, to which eveiy great name 
and every sacred recollection in our history adds its 
golden and silver thread. The passion of civil war may 
have strained, but it has not broken the bond of af- 
fection. After its calamities, the harvests are being 
peacefully gathered to their garners and the songs of 
homes are uninvaded by the cries and terror of battle. 

May we not hope, as has been well said, that the 
mystic cord of memory stretching forth from every 
battlefield and patriot grave of the Revolution to every 
loving heart and hearthstone in this broad land will 
to-day swell the chorus of the Union, since it is touched 
by the better angels of our nature? To-day, upon the 
verge of the centuries, as we together look back upon 
that which is gone, in deep and heart-felt gratitude, so 
together will we look forward with confidence to that 
which is advancing. Together will we utter in solemn 
aspiration, in the spirit of the motto of the city which 
encloses the first battlefields of the Revolution, "As 
God was to our fathers, so may he be to us." 

The maturity of the nation is but a continuation of 
its youth. The spirit of the colonies demanded freedom 
from the beginning. Indeed, the principle of civil lib- 
erty has a history which ante-dates the Declaration 
or even the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. It mani- 
fested itself in the Democracy of Athens, where the 
elements of civil liberty were called into action, and 
afterwards in the Estates Genei-al of the Normans. 
Charles I. had his Essex and Cromwell, as well 
as George III. his Hancock and Samuel Adams. The 
same standard of individual liberty against arbitrary 
exaction of power was raised at Marston Moor as well 



Centennial of the Republic 51 

as at Bunker Hill. There have always been brave and 
gallant spirits to protest against wrong, even in the 
dungeons of Austrian despotism, or in the damp vaults 
of Venice and the Spanish inquisition. In almost every 
age there has been a Withersjioon to declare from the 
pulpit, a Patrick Henry to speak from the jjlatform, 
a Joseph Warren to early consecrate himself to the 
struggle for liberty. It was the example of the men 
of the Revolution of 1688 that inspired the men of 
the Revolution of 1776. It was the straggle against 
James II., in England, that encouraged our war for 
indejiendence. The petition of rights under James II. 
was a revised edition of the bill of rights under Charles 
I. The inspiration of liberty belongs to every heart 
that beats to be free. The Declaration comprehends 
the Magna Charta, the petition of rights and the bill 
of rights, because declaring for a higher political code 
than the nation has yet seen ; it proclaims that all men 
are created free and equal; that they are endowed by 
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that 
among these are life, liberty and the i3ursuit of happi- 
ness, and that to secure these rights governments are 
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from 
the consent of the governed. 

The attempt to found political institutions upon the 
principles of the Declaration was the first distinctive 
avowal of self-government. The statesmen of Europe 
did not distinguish between anarchy and Republican- 
ism, and did not hesitate to predict the downfall of the 
nation. The signers taught the wiser political philoso- 
phy that that government is strongest when it is the 
interest of the governed to maintain it. This senti- 
ment is mightier than armies, for it disbands armies; 
it is mightier even than the law itself, for it makes 



52 Orations and Historical Addresses 

operative all living laws. The uprising of a great 
people to defeud the union of these states when im- 
perilled, astonished the governments of Europe, where 
armies are the result of conscription, and where mil- 
itary duty is compulsory. It was the development of 
that broad sentiment of nationality which underlies 
our institutions. It manifested that the people of these 
states have an attachment for the constitution dearer 
even than life itself, and that more than one million 
of men were willing to die for their country. The gov- 
ernment, after the terrible ordeal of civil war, is safe 
in the coniidence of the people. When the flag of 
Union, the welcome emblem of a restored nationality, 
again floated in triumph, the guns were returned to 
the arsenal, the dust gathered on the drums that had 
so lately beaten the long roll, while the grandest army 
that ever vindicated national integrity, returned to the 
vocations of peace. The English revolution ended in 
the dictatorship of C'romwell ; the French revolution in 
the dictatorship of Napoleon ; the late civil war in our 
land in the dictatorship of the people. The barons 
wresting the writ of King John, at Runnymede, was 
the first demand for the personal liberty of the sub- 
ject; Jefferson proclaiming the principle to the world 
was the absolute realization of the liberty of the citi- 
zen. John Hampden and Algernon Sidney should 
have seen that day in July. 

The war of the revolution was the unconscious date 
of a better liberty for man, for it became the revolt 
against tyranny for all mankind. After the avowal of 
self-government it was necessary that the history of 
djTiasties should give way before the history of peo- 
ples. The di^'ine right of man must weigh in the bal- 
ance against the divine right of kings. It gave an im- 



Centeiinial of the Bepnhlic 53 

pulse to the Frencli revolution of 1789, of 1830 and 
1848, until a republic was established on the ruins of a 
personal government under the Napoleonic dynasty. 
A century has witnessed a Cortes in Spain, a 
Corps Legislatif in France, a Reichsrath in Aus- 
tria, a Riksdag in Denmark and Sweden, and 
a Parliament of Peers and Deputies in Prus- 
sia. The Emperor Francis Joseph astonished those 
of his subjects who saw Hungarian patriots in 
1849 sent to the scatfold for rebelling against the 
despotism of the house of Hapsburg, when he declared 
to the bishops that he was a constitutional ruler and 
not an absolute monarch. The tidal wave of progress 
will sweep onward from the impetus of the Declara- 
tion. The abolition of serfdom in Russia must be fol- 
lowed by participation in governmental affairs. The 
disestablishment of the Irish church must be followed 
by the disestablishment of the English church. The 
extension of household suffrage in England must be 
followed by the extension of household suffrage in Ire- 
land. The Declaration of American Independence was 
the John the Baptist of civil and religious privileges. 
It must always exert an influence until all men shall 
have that liberty which, indeed, makes all men free. 
The rays that first play upon the mountain summit 
will soon reach the mists of the valley, and then the 
meadows and orchards and tields will rejoice in the 
full sunlight of universal liberty. 

The fathers, in establishing a form of government, 
defined the national authority most strictly, the rela- 
tion of states to each other and to the general govern- 
ment, and indicated their rights by setting forth just 
what powers had been surrendered and just what 
powers had been retained. Thus was a government 



54 Orations and Historical Addresses 

formed which for simplicity and self-motion can only 
be compared to the solar system with its central sun 
and around it the sister planets, large and small, each 
and all separate and moving in separate orbs, but all 
one under that authority which is common to all, and 
in delegated authority superior to all. The constitu- 
tion has been well compared to those wonderful rock- 
ing stones of the Druids, which are so admirably bal- 
anced that even the finger of a child can move them to 
their very center and yet which the force of a giant 
cannot overthrow. With the wide diversity of inter- 
ests, with the broad extent of territory, the strife of 
party and faction seems to sometimes threaten the very 
existence of the nation itself, and yet it has withstood 
the assaults of armies and the greatest revolution in 
the world's history. It is true, also, that we vary in 
our physical condition as states, in climate and soil and 
production. 

We vary, also, in our temperaments and in our 
tastes, but when joined together compose a beautiful 
mosaic — beautiful not only in its varied i^arts, but in 
the perfection of their harmonious adjustment. In 
this wonderful adaptability, in this reciprocal power 
consists our greatness. We are a nation within our- 
selves, possessing all the elements of progress and civil- 
ization. The sovereignty of the people is a conceded 
axiom, and the laws, established on that basis, are cher- 
ished with faithful patriotism. The nation has passed 
from its youth to its manhood. The last great trial 
proved that the Republic was strong enough to endure 
the shock of civil war, to equip great armies, to submit 
for years to the supremacy of military over ci\dl au- 
thority, and yet return to the old ways of self-govern- 
ment and representative rule. We have given the word 



Centennial of the Republic 55 

Republic an interpretation which it never received in 
the so-called Eepublies of Greece and Rome, of Venice 
and Holland, of Italy and Switzerland. After a trial of 
one hundred years, American Republicanism has dem- 
onstrated its superiority over all other forms of gov- 
ernment that have ever existed whether imperial, regal, 
oligarchic or democratic. Webster, the ablest ex- 
pounder, declares : * ' The constitution is the great 
wonder of modern times, and the certain wonder of all 
future times. It is fashioned according to no existing 
model, likened to no precedent, and founded on princi- 
ples that lie at the foundation of all free governments." 
We are a great people in the conscious possession of 
powers and obligations on which depend the highest 
issues in the history of humanity. 

The men who signed the Declaration all sleep their 
long and honored sleep under the soil which they de- 
fended. Their years passed away as fades a day of 
summer into the stillness of night, full of beautiful 
retrosiDectiou in which arose picture after picture of 
national splendor. The voice of Captain John Hop- 
kins, who first read the Declaration to the people, has 
long since been silenced, but the truths which he pro- 
claimed ring throughout the land. The work which 
they accomplished will long survive them, for they built 
upon the sure foundation of liberty and the rights of 
man. Thej' contended for equality against privilege; 
for democracy against aristocracy; for the right of 
representation and self-government. They were 
prompt to maintain their rights in the spirit of the 
old English commonwealth. "In what book," said one 
to Selden, "do you find the authority to resist tyranny 
by force ; ' ' and the great lawyer of that day answered : 
"It is the custom of England, and the custom of Eng- 



56 Orations and Historical Addresses 

land is the law of the land." The colonies had neither 
support nor sympathy, nor representation in any de- 
partment of government. While they were petitioning 
for a redress of grievances, war was precipitated upon 
them by the British government to compel subjugation. 
The men who assembled on the Fourth of July, 1776, 
to make a cause and create a country, have been judged 
by the great tribunal of mankind. They accepted, 
when necessary, the arbitrament of battle. One of the 
writers declared, as early as the thii'd century, that all 
men are born to liberty, but it remained for the fathers 
to declare that all men are bom equal. In the larg- 
est measure, the work of these men has fulfilled its 
object, and the judgment and far-seeing wisdom with 
which all difficulties were met and overcome challenge 
our admiration more and more as the years advance 
and the Eepublic extends. It may well be said of the 
signers, as the great Earl of Chatham said of the bar- 
ons who wrested the writ of personal liberty from King 
John : "It is to your ancestors, to the English barons, 
that we are indebted for the laws and constitution 
which we possess." Their understanding was as little 
polished as their manners, but they had hearts to dis- 
tinguish between right and wrong; they had heads to 
distinguish truth from falsehood; they understood the 
rights of humanity and had the spirit to maintain them. 
To have established these free institutions, to have 
maintained them through the trial of battle constitute 
the greatest claim that any body of men in history have 
upon the gratitude of posterity. The halo of glory 
encircling the signers will brighten in the retrospect 
of grateful generations. Their praise will be heard in 
the capitals of states whose stars are yet to rise into 
the crowded galaxy of our flag. As we speak of them 



Centennial of the Repntjlic 57 

to-daj" we should not forget those Britisli statesmen, 
the eloquent Chatham and Barre and Edmund Burke, 
who contended so fearlessly for the principles of civil 
liberty, nor the revolution of 1688. Indeed, we might 
call the long and illustrious roll of the patriots of all 
ages; the heroes and statesmen; the young and brave 
and beautiful ; who either on the field of battle, or shut 
out from human sympathy, gave their lives to God and 
country in the slow agony of prison martyrdom. This 
day is sacred to the cause of liberty and belongs as well 
to them. 

It was the right inherent in the people to determine 
their system of government which prompted the fathers 
to declare that these colonies should be free and inde- 
pendent states. It was that which brought to us in our 
early struggle for independence the sympathy of the 
cultivated scholarship and liberal philosophy of the 
age. It was that which enlisted the support of the 
oldest aristocracy of France, in the person of La 
Fayette, the jn-oudest nobility of Poland through Kos- 
ciuslvo, the bravest hearts of Germany through Baron 
Steuben. ■ It was the glories of this free representative 
system which called forth the eulogy of Guizot, the 
great French historian. It was this which caused the 
Junta at Madrid to sweep away the tradition of cen- 
turies, and inaugurating the era of a better civilization 
for Spain to declare for "the liberty of worship, liberty 
of instruction, liberty of reunion and peaceful associa- 
tion; the liberty of publication without special legisla- 
tion; the decentralization of administration that shall 
devolve authority to the municipalities and the prov- 
ince; judgment by jury in criminal affairs; and unity 
of power in all the branches of administrative justice." 
It is the will of the people not territorial do- 



58 Orations and Historical Addresses 

main, the right of self-government, not the assumed 
right to govern others, a constitution which secures 
the greatest liberty consistent with the greatest good; 
the right of conscience, the freedom of speech and of the 
press ; the right of trial by jury and the protection of 
life and property which constitute a great people. Ter- 
ritorial boundaries and geographical limits are subject 
alike to the condition of policy and convenience, but 
the enjoyment of liberty and constitutional freedom 
should be held as a sacred trust to be bequeathed to 
those who shall come in the generations of the future. 
It was not in a monarchy based upon the idea of a gov- 
ernment by Divine Eight, but in a Republic governed 
by the people, that a million of men were willing to 
give themselves to their country. It was Republican 
France that withstood all Europe and remained in- 
vincible until Napoleon had established an Empire on 
the ruins of the Republic. It was Republican Switzer- 
land that successfully defended her mountains against 
the aggressions of Charles the Bold and the House 
of Austria. The Communes which diffused the genius 
of Italian civilization before the days of Rome were 
Republics, composed of the heads of families. The 
period of Rome 's true greatness was Republican. The 
Empire came late, but only came to usurp, and dis- 
member. 

The Declaration of Independence was not more the 
proclamation of emancipation for the oppressed col- 
onies, than for the oppressed everywhere. It estab- 
lished as the canon of its primogeniture that human- 
ity was its first bom. Slavery was antagonistic to the 
very spirit of the Declaration as well as to the civiliza- 
tion of the age. It was founded in the habits and ideas 
of feudalism. It could no longer live in the nineteenth 



Centennial of the Republic 59 

century. It should not have lived in the eighteenth 
century. It warred with the very idea of the Declara- 
tion itself. The hand on the dial plate of progress 
could not go backward. Its destniction, therefore, 
terminated a sectional strife that never would have 
ended in its existence, for no man nor class of men 
can claim greater privileges than can be granted to 
all without endangering the peace of society. Human 
servitude dishonored the nation so that its destruction 
was not more the resurrection of liberty to the bond- 
man than the resurrection of honor to America. We 
read the Declaration to-day in the open sunlight, for 
all men are indeed free. The philanthropist no longer 
hangs his head in shame, while the shackles bind four 
millions of human beings in more than Russian serf- 
dom, for America boasts of a higher and better civiliza- 
tion than Russia. It is a source of national congratu- 
lation on this anniversary that the word "serf" has 
lost itself in the term "citizen," that the freedman 
has become the freeman. The social status of an en- 
tire people has been changed. Humanity must hence- 
forth be the oracle and law-giver of great peoples. The 
Proclamation of Emancipation was the political act of 
the century. It was less than the Declaration in that 
it only gave freedom to a race ; it was greater than the 
Declaration in that it gave deliverance from a worse 
bondage. Heaven has no heraldry. Those names are 
remembered most in history that most benefit man- 
kind ; those deeds are remembered most in history that 
most bless humanity. It is written of Demetrius that 
he was buried amidst the tears and lamentations of an 
entire people because he gave liberty to Sicily and re- 
stored her ancient privileges. The Proclamation of 
Emancipation appealed to the considerate judgment 



60 Orations and Historical Addresses 

of the country, and the gracious favor of the Ahnighty. 
Because of that act there is to-day a new Mount Vernon 
in the prairies of the West We can already read the 
verdict of posterity' in the epitaph of Jefferson, which 
speaks of him not as president of the United States, 
but that he wrote the Declaration of American Inde- 
pendence, which proclaimed the equality of man for 
a nation ; that he was the founder of the University of 
Virginia, which gave education to a state, and that he 
was the author of the statutes which gave religious 
freedom to Virginia. 

The sublime moment of the Eepublic, in the review 
of the century, was the awakening of the people to 
the danger of disunion. The assault on Sumter was 
the Day of Pentecost for the nation. It developed a 
patriotism which astonished the monarchies of Europe 
where military duty is compulsory. It was the volun- 
teer and not the conscript system that organized our 
armies. It has made war impossible at home and has 
given us dignity and consideration abroad. It accom- 
plished more for the results of the Geneva arbitration 
than all the law and all the diplomacy of the commis- 
sion. The trial of war developed the resources of the 
nation. When the struggle commenced we had been 
at peace so long that there had been no manifestation 
of popular patriotism for two generations. The war 
of 1812 had long become a part of our history, and 
almost half a century had passed since the thunders 
of Perry's guns were heard over the waters of yonder 
Lake Erie. We had a war with Mexico, but there was 
no appeal to the national strength and no draft of 
moment on the national resources. At the call to arms, 
the sledge slept noiseless on the anvil, the shuttle for- 
got its cunning, the plane lay idle on the work bench 



Centennial of the Republic 61 

and the plow rested in the half-started furrow. Fidel- 
ity to principle pervaded the masses, heroism greater 
than that of chivalry burst into action from all classes 
of men. Battalions sprung up in a night from spon- 
taneous patriotism. Youth and genius freely offered 
themselves for the public welfare. Even the natives 
of other lands forgot their kindred and memories of 
home, and without even the formality of citizenship, 
enlisted under the standard. The people were equal 
to every emergency. Defeat in the field was not fol- 
lowed by discouragement at home; it only aroused to 
more vigorous action. When the war closed there was 
an army in the tield of more than half a million of men. 
They had been constant in labor, devoted in patriotism, 
ardent in action, generous in victory and unfaltering 
in death. We have earned in blood the right of self- 
government. The government, after the terrible ordeal 
of civil war, is safe in the confidence and affections of 
the people. Her iron will generally builds up a despo- 
tism on the ruins of war; the people here at once di- 
rected public aifairs; the civil took the place of mili- 
tary power; the will of the people became the law of 
the land. There is no parallel in all history. The 
national danger became the national triumph. It is 
the crowning glory of the nineteenth century. It was 
a consecration to country that manifested an abiding 
affection for free institutions. Hereafter when one 
greater than Gibbon and more eloquent than Macauley 
shall write the histoiy of the American Republic, the 
patriotism of the people will be the brightest pages. The 
glory belongs to all. It was not the officer alone com- 
plimented in general orders and heralded in the public 
press that saved the nation. It was the private soldier 



62 Orations and Historical Addresses 

as well, with musket and knapsack; it was the kindly 
effort of motlier and wife and sister— all encouraged 
by the prayer of good men and good women, and sus- 
tained by the omnipotent arm of the God of battle. 

The war was decisive of a political problem that had 
engrossed public attention from the very origin of the 
government. Peaceable separation was considered a 
possibility in our system. 

The teachings of some of the earlier statesmen of the 
power of the state to dissolve its relation with the gen- 
eral government is no longer a question of party dis- 
cussion. The political logician may hereafter reason 
of the obligation of the written law, but the people will 
regard the constitution as the sacred covenant of a 
perpetual union. Henceforth the constitution of the 
United States and the laws made in pursuance of that 
instrument will be recognized as the supreme law of 
the land. The character of our nation, both at home 
and abroad, stands higher than ever before for its 
military and naval prowess and for its ability to main- 
tain itself against civil commotion and internal dis- 
order. There is neither danger abroad or fear of 
anarchy at home. It has been decreed by the bayonet 
and written in blood that the unity of the Republic 
must be maintained. We are stronger to-day in terri- 
torial unity, because of the graves which fill the valleys 
of Virginia and billow the basin of the Mississippi. 
The American citizen may well have an abiding faith 
in his country's strength and his country's future. The 
patriotism of the people will secure the constitution 
from the assaults of faction and from the inroads of 
bigotry. Now that the national greatness and stability 
are guaranteed, it will be the duty of all to defend the 
freedom and individuality of the citizen from the ag- 



Centennial of the Republic 63 

gression of power and to prevent corruption in high 
places. The wisdom of the statesman can now be 
employed in directing the industry of the people to the 
advancement of the public good. The nation must 
move forward in the pursuit of peace. The future lies 
in that direction. Every conquest of value is at the 
price of popular commotion and heroic blood. Men 
must dare if they would win. Every battlefield has, 
however, above the roar of cannon and the crash of 
musketry, a flag, which is the symbol of an idea. That 
idea is often mightier than the army itself for it dis- 
bands armies. One of America's most eloquent ora- 
tors has said: "Every step in the world's onward 
progress has been from scaffold to scaffold and from 
stake to stake. We only need to read history. We 
find in all its pages the story of more lives sacrificed 
by the lingering dungeon; by wearing famine and dis- 
ease; by the short, sharp agony of rope, or scaffold, 
or stake; living true to liberty; suffering willingly in 
its behalf; dying, sealing their testimony with their 
blood." It is the law of all physical life. The at- 
mosphere, for its own purity, requires the electricity, 
and the ocean the agitation of its waters. Otis and 
Henry and Adams pleaded with a price set upon their 
heads, while they cleared a space for the sunshine and 
growth of enlarged liberty. John Hampden gave his 
life for legal justice, and it was necessary that Alger- 
non Sidney should consecrate himself to his country. 
The beginning of the nation could only be established 
by a long struggle; by the example of severe fortune; 
by the sacrifice of blood ; by the increasing avowal of 
truth, and by that never-failing enthusiasm which is 
stronger than any misfortune. It could only be main- 
tained by the tears of women and the blood of brave 



64 Orations and Historical Addresses 

men. Governments cannot be improvised; they are 
a growtli not a creation. They must spring from the 
very heart of the people— from the history, the educa- 
tion, the social organization of the people, the habits 
and tendencies of the country. The people must feel 
the moral duties of citizenship; they must not be pas- 
sive subjects so much as participating citizens. The 
late war was a people's war and was sanctified by a 
national purpose. The cause for which they fought 
was their cause; the reward of victory was their re- 
ward ; the effort to obtain it was their effort. For that 
reason it excited to an inspired life and an exalted 
patriotism all those capacities for struggles and for 
sacrifices which are so easily kindled in the breasts of 
a people who love their institutions and who value 
their liberty. They felt a consciousness that the coun- 
try was their name, their glory, their sign among the 
peoples and nations of the earth. That sentiment wel- 
comes death and disease, if necessary, and when in- 
scribed on the banner of an army is stronger than 
bayonets. There is something so self-sacrificing in 
forgetting all for country. What grander picture in 
the classics than when Agamemnon, on regaining his 
home after a perilous life of more than ten years at 
the siege of Troy, before addressing his family, his 
friends, his people, should first sahate his country ! 

A great historian, in speaking of the spirit of our 
laws, says: "Prosperity follows the execution of even 
justice ; invention is quickened by the freedom of com- 
petition, and labor rewarded with sure and unexampled 
return. Domestic peace is maintained without the aid 
of standing armies, while a gallant navy protects our 
commerce, which spreads its banners on every sea and 
extends its enterprise to every clime. Our diplomatic 



Centennial of the Republic 65 

relations connect us in terms of equality and honest 
friendship with the chief powers of the world, while 
we avoid entangling participation in their passions, 
their intrigues and their wars. The national resources 
are developed by an earnest culture of the arts of 
peace. The government by its organization is neces- 
sarily identified with the interests of the people and 
relies exclusively on their attachment for its durability 
and its support. Religion, neither persecuted nor paid 
by the state, is sustained by the regard for public 
morals, and the conviction of an enlightened faith. 
An immense number of emigrants, of the most various 
lineage, is perpetually crowding to our shores, and the 
principle of liberty, uniting all interests by the opera- 
tion of equal laws, blends the discordant elements into 
the harmonious union of a common citizenship." 

We find already in the centennial year of the Repub- 
lic that our history has become the history of great 
achievements ; that our civilization has become the civil- 
ization of centuries comprehended in one century. It 
is the garnered wisdom of the past embodied in the 
present. Indeed, there is no past with this people. 
The nation belongs to the present and the future. It 
is not of yesterday, but of to-day and to-morrow. We 
have great names in science, in art and in literature. 
We have great names in statesmanship and war. We 
have marshalled a million of men in the battlefield 
and heard their shouts as from east and west they 
passed onward to the ranks of war. The armies were 
picked up on the banks of the Ohio and Cumberland, 
and dropped on the banks of the Potomac. The senti- 
ment, too, of an entire people has changed from shame 
to honor on the question of human servitude. We have 
made rapid advance in every department of hmnan 



66 Orations and Historical Addresses 

industry. Our philosophy and our laws influence the 
ends of the habitable globe. The sails of our merchant- 
men whiten every sea. The masts of our commerce 
are seen in the waters of every ocean. Our ironclads 
are received with salvos in every port of the world. 
The general of our armies has the entree to every 
court of the continent and even the Sultan of Turkey 
accords him royal honor. We ask for an indemnity 
on the high seas and the nations of the earth take 
counsel together. We have given a Morse to the world, 
by whose inventive genius the currents of human 
thought are borne by the electric telegraph from one 
continent to another, telling the story of revolution 
and revolts, of empires overthrown and dynasties es- 
tablished, of declaration of war and treaties of peace 
and of great statesmen fallen in death. We have given 
a Hoe to civilization, whose press is only second in 
influence to the art of printing itself. Forests have 
been cleared to open a productive soil to the genial 
influences of the sunlight. The sound of the woodman's 
axe is being heard less distinctly eastward. The smoke 
of the cabin is lost in the smoke of the foundrj^ Cities 
are springing up and churches and schoolhouses are 
dotting every hill side. The soil, which has been 
gathering fertility from the repose of centuries and 
which has been lavishing its strength in magnificent 
but useless vegetation, is now budding and blossom- 
ing as the rose under the direction of an intelligent 
husbandry. The feeble settlements on the bays and in- 
lets of the Atlantic have extended into a continent 
until we have carried our name, our watchwords and 
our flag to the Golden Gate, where California, with 
her snow-capped diadem, sits virgin empress of the 
seas. We look with confidence to the future. With 



Centennial of the Republic 67 

a line of railway binding the Atlantic and Pacific to- 
gether, and making the American continent the great 
highway of communication from England to China, 
with our commerce on every sea, with our immense 
agricultural resoui'ces, with our fertility of soil and va- 
riety of climate, with the intelligence and energy of this 
people, who can estimate that which is beyond? Stand- 
ing here to-day in this presence, with all the traditions 
of the past, with all the progress of the present and 
all the promises of the future, it does not require the 
spirit of prophecy to predict a great civilization for 
this people. Surely the emblem of our nationality is 
the symbol of power and glory from the rising to the 
setting of the sun. We have shown for the first time 
in all history that men may love their country without 
intolerance, may fight her battles without hate and may 
be conqueror without revenge. The centennial year 
should be the era of pacification and reconciliation so 
that the nation may move forward as with the majesty 
of a new life. The interests of forty millions of peo- 
ple, as well as the interests of generations in the fu- 
ture demand unity and peace for the Republic. A 
restoration of lost confidence, a restoration of the com- 
mercial and social relations of the past, can alone re- 
construct this country until over the grave of sec- 
tionalism shall float the flag of a united and happy peo- 
ple. The south has the glory as well as the name of 
colonial and revolutionaiy scenes for an inheritance. 
Her limits contain the dust of Washington and Henry 
and Jackson. A nation pays tribute at the grave of 
her great dead, her Mount Vernon and her Hermitage. 
Her JetTerson gave us the Declaration, while the soil 
is sanctified by the battlefields of the Revolution, and 
hallowed by the heroism which endured sacrifice and 



68 Orations and Historical Addresses 

suffering. The nation cannot afford to be unjust. 
England was taught this lesson when O'Connell de- 
clared for Catholic emancipation and for relieving the 
people of Ireland from clerical oppression; and in 
her earlier years when, after the restoration of Charles 
II. and his liberal proclamation, all the animosities of 
the late civil war were forgotten in the embrace of 
the Cavalier and the Roundhead. It is the teaching of 
history and philosophy, as Edmund Burke well de- 
clared it, that by considering one fellow-citizen in a 
hostile light the whole body of our countrj'meu become 
less dear to us. In generous remembrance of our com- 
mon country, neither now nor hereafter should we 
distinguish between states or sections in our wish for 
the happiness of all. It is the duty of the state to 
make a nation strong in justice, strong in right, strong 
in all that which constitutes moral greatness. Right- 
eousness can alone exalt the nation. 

The retrospect is full of congratulation. There is 
something in American citizenship that awakens a just 
pride in the very name of country. In this material 
prosperity, however, lies the danger. We want the 
fellowship of the good and strong and stalwart in 
every part of the land against the new forms of aristoc- 
racy which the agencies of modern society have cre- 
ated. We must protect freedom itself from the peril- 
ous activities quickened into life by its own spirit. We 
must discover new defenses of democracy in the new 
trials of its life. The true religion of humanity is the 
uplifting of the many to the higher level of advanced 
citizenship. We should not forget the claims of coun- 
try. There is need of high statesmanship, and states- 
manship, in its best sense, consists in the wise and 
timely use of opportunities. The country can well lay 



Centennial of the Republic 69 

claim to our noblest zeal and our warmest atfection. 
What higher mission can there be than to apply to so- 
ciety the three great doctrines of peace and liberty 
and justice, to teach that patriotism which means love 
of country, and prepare the mind to study the best 
path of conduct toward that coimtryf What higher 
mission than to found a new order of things on the 
ruins of the old, with permanence and stability? To 
meet with constancy the reflex of the wave, to continue 
the prosecution of old tastes and habits and institu- 
tions wherein the greater part of government unity 
consists with the changes called forth by the times ; to 
renew and yet to conserve; to oppose, to watch, to 
foil, to defeat the intrigues of disappointed friends 
and the cabals of concealed enemies; to raise from the 
mingled and incoherent elements of a revolution a great 
social and political temple dedicated to the liberty of 
man; these are the tasks of statesmanship. The na- 
tional idea that a man has a right to life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness, can be found in all the poetry 
of the world. It remains for this day and this gen- 
eration to see this great principle written in blood on 
the leaves of national life. It remains for this day 
and this generation to see to it that this great prin- 
ciple is not forgotten in the so-called magnificent utili- 
ties of American life. If we neglect this duty then all 
the graves of the war are in vain. It is said that the 
nation found a grandeur by war, in that it linked young 
life to new opportunities, purer self-devotion, more 
heroic endings. It must retain these things in peace. 
If men can afford to die for their country, men can 
afford to live for their country. In the century of our 
history there has been nothing better written to de- 
velop that spirit than the little volume by Edward 



70 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Everett Hale, entitled "A Man Without a Country." 
It teaches that after all there is something in the idea 
of home. It tells us that Philip Nolan, lieutenant in 
the navy of the United States, mshed for an epitaph 
after knowing what it was to want a country, these 
words: "Here lies one who loved his country more 
than any man loved her, but who deserved less at her 
hands." There are many things in life dearer even 
than life itself. Honor in the noblest sense, patriotism, 
duty, all are dearer. We must be faithful to all these 
to maintain free institutions. 

The partisan will not hesitate to picture the calami- 
ties which must befall the country in the success of 
either of the political organizations of the land. There 
is a sentiment, fortunately, higher than party which 
will not let the nation die. It will not be permitted 
that the sun of our national prosperity should go down 
while it is yet day. The nation was born for the whole 
era of freedom. If we of to-day hesitate, then new 
men will come up with nobler principles than their 
ancestors. There shall be no rent or seam of this one 
garment of liberty. The world shall see that this gov- 
ernment, made and sustained by free men, both within 
and without, is competent to all the duties of admin- 
istration. The nations of the earth, too, that are now 
under bondage and looking for a better life, may turn 
and follow the example until all shall be redeemed and 
disenthralled by the very spirit of our free institu- 
tions. The duties of all sections are ^dtally blended. 
The returning anniversary should welcome a greater, 
a hai^pier, and a more prosperous people. We are one 
in language, in blood, and one in a common struggle 
for independence. We sing the same national songs. 



Centennial of the Bepiihlic 71 

The glory of Lexington and Concord, of Liindy's Lane 
and New Orleans, of Monterey and Buena Vista, be- 
longs to all alike. To-day without hatred, without bit- 
terness, without passion, but in the spirit of a gener- 
ous magnanimity we renew our devotion to country. 
We renew the memory of those who established this 
government, nor can we forget those who have pre- 
served it through the trial of battle. The names of 
all may not live upon the pages of history, but the 
story of their sacrifice and their patriotism will long be 
cherished in the recollections of a grateful people. Some 
fell gloriously on the field of battle ; some perished by 
the wayside worn and weary by the laborious march; 
some wasted away with wounds and disease in the camp 
or hospital ; some lingered in the slow death of prison 
martyrdom. The gray-haired veteran and the strip- 
ling in the flower of youth, who had stood side by side 
through those dreadful years, fell together at last, 
"like the beauty of Israel in the high places." If we 
forget those who died for us, if we forget those who 
sleep quietly in distant fields, then God may forget us. 
We promise to-day a like devotion on the part of the 
living. There is a tradition that, as Columbus sailed 
toward that country which he afterwards gave to Cas- 
tile and Leon, a piece of carved wood came floating by 
in the water, while birds of the most beautiful plumage 
alighted upon the masts of his vessel. It was an omen 
of the discovery of a continent. We enter the second 
century of the Eepublic with omens about us such 
as never gladdened the eyes of the great discoverer. 
With an abiding confidence that He wlio helped us in 
the beginning will not desert us in the hour of need, 
we go forward to realize the glorious vision of the 



72 Orations and Historical Addresses 

fathers, of a continent rejoicing in all its latitudes and 
from sea to sea in the very fullness of material pros- 
perity and in the enjoyment of civil and religious privi- 
leges. 



SCHOLARSHIP AND COUNTRY 

Aeschylus tells us that Agamemnou, ou returning 
home, after a perilous absence of more than ten years 
at the siege of Troy, before addressing his friends, his 
people, or even his family, saluted his country. In 
accepting the courtesies of this occasion I have thought 
it not inappropriate, even in these beautiful and classic 
grounds, to address a Fraternity which comprehends 
so much culture and learning, upon the claims of coun- 
try on the scholarship of the land. I do not mean that 
the Iliad of Homer, or the Aeneid of Virgil, or 
the history of Herodotus, should form a part of our 
parliamentary debates, nor that even our statesman- 
ship should reason in public assembly of units and 
tens, of triangles and rectangles, of ellipses and parab- 
olas. 

It is rather the scholarship that amplifies the mind, 
that enriches the memory, that expands the faculties of 
thought, that enlarges the understanding, that improves 
the intellectual powers, to the end that public senti- 
ment may be enlightened, that public character may 
be ennobled, that a higher sense of duty may be 
awakened, and that there may be on the part of the 
people a better consciousness of the arts and maxims 
indicative of their glory. 

In every free state there must be an educated public 
opinion to give form to law, and then a faithful ad- 
Delivered before the Delta. Kappa Epsilou Fraternity, at 
the Thirtieth Annual Convention, Williams College, Massa- 
chusetts, October 5, 1876. 

[73] 



74 Orations and Historical Addresses 

herence to a written constitution becomes the only- 
guarantee of public safety. That which awakens in a 
people a knowledge of individual rights and which in- 
spires a sentiment of national life is most important 
in the organization of governments. Epietetus truth- 
fully told his sovereign that he would confer a greater 
favor on the state by elevating the souls of the people 
than by raising the roofs of their houses. There is an 
opinion, very largely shared, that an antagonism exists 
between culture and practical success, and that learn- 
ing, in its best sense, is inconsistent with the conduct 
of public affairs. It is assumed to-day, by even a ma- 
jority, that in a Republic which is controlled by great 
moral principles, scholarship is absolutely a disqualifi- 
cation for the discharge of important public trusts, or, 
at least, the other opinion prevails that public life is 
unworthy the ambition of culture and elevated literary 
taste. 

Political life is exhibited to the scholarship of the 
land in its most repulsive form, like the drunken Helot 
to the youths of Sjjarta as a warning and example. 
Young men may pass through our schools and colleges 
with but little knowledge of their duty to society and 
country, and there even may be some truth in the ob- 
servation of William Hazlitt in his Table TaUi, that 
anj'one who has passed through the regular gradation 
of a college education and is not made a fool thereby, 
may consider himself as having bad a narrow escape. 

If they are unsuccessful with this ^preparation, they 
could not hope for preferment without a familiarity 
with Calculus or a knowledge of the Tusculan Disputa- 
tions. Cultivation does not impoverish. Pedantry 
may be almost as objectionable as ignorance. 

It is not assumed that every graduate leaves college 



Scholarship and Country 75 

like Minerva, from the brain of Jupiter, completely 
armed for every emergency, and that the academy is a 
Trojan horse, whence go forth none but real men; but 
the lessons of history do teach that there can be no 
dignity or permanence in free government unless the 
best knowledge and the highest culture shall influence 
the public mind. In order to advance important public 
interests, care must be taken to understand the very 
origin and nature of the laws themselves, political as 
well as moral, that govern and direct human happiness. 

It is the scholar as the representative of thought; 
it is the scholar as the inspiration of freedom; it is 
scholarsliip as the conscience of the state. It matters 
not whether this thought comes of the laws and letters 
of Cicero, or the art of Angelo, or the metaphysics of 
Pascal, or the philosophy of John Stuart Mill so much 
as whether it shall shed a sacred and permanent in- 
fluence over the present and future of a nation's his- 
tory. The fine scholarship of poetic Petrarch, al- 
though his father cast into the flames the poetical 
library of his son amid his protestations and tears, did 
not deprive him of the Koman laurel. It was the 
scholarship of John Milton which made him love liberty 
not less than letters, and who wished to leave some- 
thing to after ages so written that they would not 
willingly let his name die. It was the scholarship of 
Lamartine which was powerful enough and patriotic 
enough to save France from the calamities of civil war. 
It was the scholarship of the younger Adams which 
made him the greatest citizen of a great common- 
wealth. It was the scholarship of Charles Sumner 
which proved him to be braver than any politician in 
New England on the question of human servitude. 

In the Political Ethics of Francis Leiber, it is writ- 



76 Orations and Historical Addresses 

ten: "We can in politics as little dispense with am- 
bition, as in the arts, science or literature in the school, 
the home, or the various avocations of practical life. 
For if ambition in those gifted citizens who, by their 
peculiar mental organization are fitted for officers or 
as leaders, is extinguished, either by disgust at a de- 
generate state of things or their own haughtiness, and 
if it be not properly kindled in the rising generation 
by directing their attention to the noblest examples 
of civic worth in the history of this country or that 
of other great nations, one of the greatest and most 
ruinous evils of a state must necessarily befall it — that 
of political apathy or indifferentism, which always 
foments political demoralization as it partly arises 
from it, until it extinguishes all public spirit and patri- 
otism. ' ' 

If the best, the well informed, the honest, do not 
strive for the honors of the commonwealth, the wicked, 
ignorant, or dishonest will; if all matters of political 
distinction, be it by way of parliamentary honor, dis- 
tinction of high office, on the bench, or in whatever 
other manner, be disregarded or derided, matters of 
justice and politics themselves soon will be treated so 
too. If the substantial citizens become indifferent 
and do not vote, perhaps too proud to mingle in the 
crowd or to exercise so high a privilege of liberty 
at the expense of some personal inconvenience, as they 
ought, others will do the same, and the faex infima 
populi, when such have a right of voting, will infallibly 
be at the polls. Indifferentism in politics will issue in 
political atony, dissolution of the political ties, and, 
of course, in the death of justice and liberty; an awful 
state of things, out of which convulsive revolutions 



Scholarship and Country 77 

alone, accompanied with suffering and violence, can 
develop a new ordei'. 

There can be no higher mission for a genuine scholar- 
ship than to awaken the public conscience to the ad- 
vancement of the public good. Scholarship can have 
no higher object than the maintenance of the principle 
of civil liberty, which, after all, is the very condition 
of its growth. There can be no intellectual life with- 
out freedom. There can be no moral life without 
liberty. There can be no political development without 
unrestricted thought. It was Vulpian who declared 
as early as the third century that all men are born 
to liberty. It remained for the fathers to declare that 
all men are born equal. They were prompt to main- 
tain freedom in the spirit of the old English Common- 
wealth. "In what book," said one to Selden, "do you 
find authority to resist tyranny by force?" and the 
greatest lawyer of his day answered: "It is the cus- 
tom of England, and the custom of England is ihe 
law of the land. ' ' This is the spirit, as well, of genuine 
scholarship. The halo of glory encircling the signers 
will brighten in the retrospect of grateful genera- 
tions. Their praise will be heard in the capitals of 
states whose stars are yet to rise in the crowded galaxy 
of the flag. It is this reward which will come to the 
present if this principle is maintained for the genera- 
tions of the future. 

The declaration upon which our institutions are 
founded was the John the Baptist of civil and religious 
privileges. It is established as the canon of its primo- 
geniture that humanity was its first-born. It was the 
unconscious date of a better liberty for man. It be- 
came the revolt against oppression for all mankind. 



78 Orations and Historical Addresses 

This distinctive avowal of self-government has made it 
necessary for the history of dynasties to give way be- 
fore the history of peoples. The divine right of man 
must weigh in the balance against the di\'ine right 
of kings. The abolition of serfdom must be followed 
bj^ participation in governmental affairs. The dis- 
establishment of the Irish church must be followed by 
disestablishment of the English church. The extension 
of household suffrage in England must be followed 
by the extension of household suffrage in Ireland. 
It is the duty of the liberal scholarship of the age to 
enforce this principle from center to every circumfer- 
ence. Civil liberty, which means freedom from polit- 
ical or religious intolerance, has no horizon but human- 
ity. Citizenship in the Rejiublic of Letters has no geog- 
raphy. The power of scholarship is in its univer- 
sality. It has not been geometricians but scholar and 
thinker who have formed constitutions from the time 
of Solon to Thomas Jefferson. Books are nothing, 
and libraries are nothing without this principle as the 
basis of political life. Literature, in its absence, could 
as well retire with the ecclesiastics to the monasteries 
of the middle ages. Scholarship is the rays of the 
morning sun which first play upon the mountain sum- 
mit until it descends to the mists of the valley, where 
meadows and orchards and homes all rejoice in the 
full sunlight of universal freedom. 

There is something in American citizenship that 
awakens a just pride in the very name of country. "We 
have given the word Republic an interpretation which 
it never received in the Republics of Greece and Rome, 
of Venice and Holland, of Italy and Switzerland. 

It has been demonstrated in the Centennial year that 
the democratic idea in our system of government has 



Scholarship and Country 79 

mauifested its superiority over all other forms of gov- 
ernment, whether imperial, regal, oligarchic or demo- 
cratic. We are a people great in the conscious pos- 
session of power and obligations, on which depend the 
highest issues of humanity. We have shown for the 
first time in history that men may love their country 
without intolerance; that men may fight the battles 
of their country without hate, and that men may be 
conquerors without revenge. 

"Next to the grandeur of a planet that carries a 
thousand millions of people upon its bosom and whirls 
them along through day and night, and summer and 
winter, and youth and old age, comes the grandeur of 
a well-equipped state, which for hundreds of years 
guards the liberty and industry, and education, and 
hajipiness of its dependent millions, crowding its in- 
fluence in upon them gently as the atmosphere lies 
upon the cheek in June. Her language, her peculiar 
genius, her ideals, her religion, her freedom, enwrap us 
better than our mothers' arms; for the state enwraps 
her too, and wreathes her forehead with a merit that 
warrants her office and her affection," is the language 
of a modern writer. 

Country comprehends everything— propertj', home, 
happiness, and even life itself. The beautiful genius 
of Cicero describes country as embracing all the chari- 
ties of all. 

Governments can not be improvised, they are a 
growth, not a creation. They must spring from the 
very heart of the people— from their tendencies, their 
belief, their education. The people must feel the moral 
duties of citizenship ; they must be more than passive 
subjects; they must be participating citizens. No one 
is justified in holding aloof from proper activity. 



80 Orations and Historical Addresses 

There was no little wisdom in the decree of Solon 
that no one should remain neutral in the time 
of public danger. The time of public danger is omni- 
present. The people must always realize that the 
country is their name, their glory, their sign among 
the nations of the earth. Every citizen should find for 
himself the very reasons upon which our institutions 
and our laws are founded. The highest idea that man 
can cherish being that of right, it follows that the most 
important education is that which teaches him to de- 
termine the right. Intolerance comes of egotism; lib- 
erty comes of right. The potency of scholarship is in 
public opinion. Public opinion penetrates the mighty 
mass of human action. It shapes the whole course of 
public events. It is the condensation of all the thought 
of the community upon the subject. It is an epitome 
revered of all people. It is the voice of the pen, the 
pulpit, the study, the bar, the forum. All these enter 
in to make the great power by which all human affairs 
are determined, just as every raindrop and every dew- 
drop and every misty-exhalation which reflects the 
rainbow contributes to swell the mountain stream or 
the ocean flood. Scholarship should create and not 
follow public opinion. The classics used to call all 
the studies of scholars, history, poetry, eloquence, 
music, the humanities, because they brought no tears, 
no wars, no bloodshed, but went out pure to the human 
heart, and conquered in the name of pleasure and of 
peace. Montesquieu breathes the pure spirit of the 
scholar when he says : ' ' Could I but succeed so as to 
afford new reasons to every man to love his Prince, 
his country, his laws; new reason to render him more 
sensible in every nation and government of the bless- 



Scholarship and Country 81 

ings he enjoys, I should thiuk myself the most happy 
of mortals. 

"Could I but succeed so as to persuade those who 
command to increase their knowledge in what they 
might prescribe ; and to those who obey, to find a new 
pleasure resulting from obedience, I should think my- 
self the most happy of mortals. 

"The most happy of mortals should I think myself 
could I but contribute to make mankind recover from 
these prejudices. By prejudice, I here mean, not that 
which renders men ignorant of some particular things, 
but whatever renders them ignorant of themselves." 

The interests of states require, for their promotion 
and adjustment, the most profound judgment and the 
most mature thought. Guizot says, that "God has 
made the terms of national welfare more difficult than 
any nation is willing to believe." Cicero says, that 
"the state should be so founded as that it may be eter- 
nal;" while Aristotle, to the same effect, declares, that 
"the life of the state is forever and the same, although 
its masses are ever in the act of being born and dying." 
The best thought should always be directed toward 
the greatest good. Learning is patriotism because it 
not only enables the citizen to demand what is due 
to himself, but makes him concede what is due to others. 
It lifts him up to a proper appreciation of rights and 
obligations. Liberty and learning have always con- 
tended togetlier against despotism and wrong. The 
scholars have always been the herald of popular rights, 
like John Hampden against the tax act; the defenders 
of the people's liberties, like Algernon Sidney, dying 
on the field of battle; the founder of the people's in- 
stitutions, like Samuel Adams. The idea of public 
order to be effective must be invested with a great 



82 Orations and Historical Addresses 

majesty. Constitutions are not respected unless a liigli 
sentiment of veneration is inspired for the law as 
expressed in the written form. If good men do not 
go to the councils of the people, then bad men will 
direct public affairs. Public clamor may be mistaken 
for an enlightened public opinion, and a measure de- 
structive of great interests may be enacted. It is said 
that the English corn laws retarded the progress of 
mankind in England for thirty years more than all 
the wars of Napoleon. 

Citizenship is something only when country is some- 
thing. Scholarship cannot afford to assume a dignity 
greater than the nation. Scholarship cannot afford 
to wait to be invited to public life ; it must go from a 
grander impulse than self. It should not reserve it- 
self for the more stately occasions which are periodi- 
cal, nor should it act alone in the more critical emergen- 
cies of society which are but temporary. Cincinnatus 
left his plow and only returned when he had rendered 
full service to his country. Nothing is unworthy of 
the best thought in science, or literature, or law, which 
may contribute in any way to the welfare of man and 
the safety of the Republic. When the politician was 
silent, and the press muffled, and even the pulpit held 
its tongue, the scholar of Massachusetts was eloquent 
over the barbarism of slavery. It would be a calamity, 
hardly less terrible in its consequences than civil war 
itself, if the men of letters should, voluntarily or invol- 
untarilj^ be divorced from all active sympathy with 
their political and social institutions. The aim of all 
generous scholarship should be toward creating and 
keeping alive a sound public opinion upon all subjects 
of morality, philosophy, of science and politics. In 
a Republic where the whole people legislate and public 



Scholarship and Country 83 

sentiment is the supreme law, the intellectual and 
moral culture of the nation should be elevated to a 
right conception of justice. It was written in one of the 
old Egj'ptian temples, "Know ye that govern that 
God hates injustice." "There is but one means to 
render a government firm, and that is by justice," said 
Carnot, when the question was debated whether the 
imperial crown should be offered to Napoleon in order 
to render the government stable. The great dramatist 
says : 

"Corruption wins not more than honesty; 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace. 
To silence envious tongues. Be just and fear not; 
Let all the ends thou aimest at, be thy country's, 
Thy God's, and tiiith's," 

It is not necessary that the scholar should become 
minister, or secretary, or senator, to exercise a lasting 
influence on the legislation of the land. Men of se- 
cluded and studious lives have often sent from cloister 
and closet thoughts that have agitated courts and revo- 
lutionized kingdoms. Vattel, in his study, gave law 
to the nations, and Adam Smith, in the quiet of the 
library, founded the science of political economy. 
John Milton, in blindness and in prison, sang immor- 
tal strains which, vast, waveless and irresistible, flow 
toward their far off ocean. Wilberforce and Buxton, 
whose praises are yet heard in the lowly whom they 
lifted up, were scholars as renowned in the lecture 
room as in parliament. Indeed, the men of England 
whose names are greatest in statesmanship are men 
whose names are great in learning, and many of them, 
in earlier days, carried away the prizes of Eton and 
Oxford and Cambridge. 



84 Orations and Historical Addresses 

The liberal thought of Europe has been greatly stim- 
ulated by the scholars and students of the universities 
who had gathered inspiration from the burning lines 
of Homer, and the blazing orations of Demosthenes, 
as^well as from the glowing pages of Livy and the lofty 
periods of Cicero. They had the veiy spirit of the 
Spartans, who went to battle to return either with or 
on their shields. It was the scholarship of New Eng- 
land in the matchless rhetoric of Sumner and Phillips, 
and in the stiri-ing lyrics of Longfellow and Wliittier, 
that changed the opinion of an entire people from 
sliame to honor and awakened the public conscience to 
the beautiful sentiment of Plato in the Eleventh Book 
of his Dialogues: "May I, being of sound mind, do 
unto others as I would that they should do to me." 

Scholarship, to be effective, must be aggressive. It 
must be Jerome of Prague, with a consciousness of 
truth and right, nailing his twelve theses to the door of 
the church at Heidelberg, and challenging the whole 
world to dispute them. To think is to revolutionize. 
Thought creates a wide discontent and a better en- 
deavor. What encourages young men to criticise the 
laws and institutions of their country does shake them 
in the infallibility of the fathers. It is, beyond doubt, 
that the teachings of the early philosophers produced 
this effect. Xenophon tells us that the youth of rich 
families who followed Socrates did so against the se- 
vere disapprobation of their friends and relatives. In 
every society there is a sentiment, suspicious and jeal- 
ous of all freedom of thought and intellectual rule, un- 
less it can be regulated by some ci\nl or ecclesiastical 
authority. This persecution did not expire with the 
earlier centuries. Roger "Williams was exiled for re- 
lia:ious freedom since the davs of Galileo and Servetus. 



Scholarship and Country 85 

It matters not that no heresy is taught. It is sufficient 
that fjuestions are asked and that the reason demands 
an answer. This is a dangerous tendency in the eyes 
of self-satisfied respectability. The old philosopher 
who reasoned of the immortality of the soul was con- 
demned by the State as a corrupter of morals. There 
is nothing in all Plato more impressive than in his 
picture in the Gorgias and Republic of the solitary and 
despised position of the philosopher— not the one who 
knows, but who wishes to know— and the impressions 
against him as, at best, a useless person, but more fre- 
quently a wicked one. 

The legitimate goal of all human incjuiry is the en- 
dowment of human life with new riches, new beauties, 
new inventions, whether in science, in religion, or in 
the state. That is the aim and end of all true scholar- 
ship. It is that spirit in literature which gave us a 
generation of intellects, of which Coleridge was the 
jihilosopher. Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt, Shelley and 
Keats were the poets, Southey the historian, Hazlitt 
the critic, and Charles Lamb the humorist. It was 
that scholarship which elevated the public life of 
England so that there were heard the thunders of Chat- 
ham, the fancy and wit of Sheridan, the simple and 
yet studied majesty of Burke. It was that spirit which 
gave to Edward Everett the title of orator, and wins 
for some politicians the name of statesmen. It was the 
scholastic spirit which made the man who added south- 
ern and central India to the British empire desire that 
his body might be laid in the chapel of Eton College 
and not in Westminster Abbey, the mausoleum of Bri- 
tain's genius and royalty. 

The scholarship of the press is not less powerful 
for good than the scholarship of the tribune. It was 



86 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Baid of the Spectator that it brought philosophy from 
the closet to the ordinary hearths and homes of men. 
It can better be said of the modern newspaper press 
that it brings information and opinions to every home 
and hearthstone in the land. Edmund Burke character- 
ized journalism as an estate of the realm. It furnishes 
the daily reading of millions. It sujiplies the people 
with information on current events and furnishes con- 
clusions at the same time. This is the great power, 
for while some men think for themselves it is equally 
true that most men think as others think or do not 
think at all. In the days of the Stuarts and the com- 
monwealth journals were few and tracts numberless 
and daring. Pamphlets in prose and verse were, in 
fact, the weapons, and pamphleteers the champions in 
political warfare. Two of the greatest intellects of the 
day. Dr. Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke, appear 
in this character— the former in the False Alarm and 
the latter in defense of Lord Rockingham's adminis- 
tration. In the era initiated in the reign of King 
George III., the press gave a powerful impulse to pub- 
lic opinion ; it gave a new direction to public taste, and 
quickened into action the intellect of the nation. The 
publications treated of civil privileges, of the objects 
of government, of the rights and duties of the people. 
They appealed to immutable principles and enduring 
interests, and, in the course of a few years, supplanted 
the finely tempered irony of Steele, the grace and moral 
beauty of Addison, the oriental richness of Hawkes- 
worth, the pomp of Johnson, the fertile genius of Cum- 
berland and the pathos of Mackensie. Events took 
place in the world of politics that turned men's at- 
tention to the intrigues of cabinets and changes in es- 
tablished form and principles. It was such an appeal 



Scholarship and Country 87 

to the people, and not a cold deference to a school or a 
court, that called forth the letters of Junius. The na- 
tion was advanced by discoveries in science, by prin- 
ciples in philosophy, by truths in history and even by 
the graces of poetry and fiction. It was manifested 
in the philosophy of Wordsworth, in the inspiring lyrics 
of Campbell and in the tender melodies of Burns. The 
press became more powerful, and will always become 
more powerful, as it became a part of the people and 
addressed their sympathies and defended their rights. 
Men always as they share that sentiment of humanity 
will be great; men as they hate that sentiment of hu- 
manity will be little. The stout legs of a common hu- 
manity will stick right out from under the coverlid of 
whatever Procrustes' bed it may be stretched on, and 
the legs will condemn, instead of being condemned by, 
the bedstead. The influence of modern newspaper 
literature is a feature peculiar to this age. The words 
of the press go like morning over the continent. It 
circles the globe with winged words. It is the center 
of a vast circumference. The community must be 
animated, the minds of the people must be emancipated 
from ignorance, and their political rights secured from 
the invasion of despotism. The printing press, di- 
rected by a genuine scholarship and fei-vent patriotism, 
is the army for this work, conquering by its intelli- 
gence. It sends its battalions and its regiments to 
storm every stronghold. Gutenberg, as Lamartine de- 
scribes him, was the mechanist of the new world. 
Every letter of the alphabet which left his fingers con- 
tained more power than the armies of kings. It was 
mind which he furnished with language. The news- 
paper press speaks with a Pentecostal tongue. 
Scholarship armed with a printing press is invincible. 



88 Orations and Historical Addresses 

It can be watchful with more than the one hundred eyes 
of Argus— strong with the more than one hundred arms 
of Briareus— in holding up to public condemnation the 
honorable senators who tried Verres and at the same 
time received valuable presents, and the not less hon- 
orable senators who professed to believe in the alibi 
of Clodius, and at the same time were recipients of 
special favors. It can silence the demagogue who, 
like Cataline, can raise a storm, but who cannot, like 
Cromwell, control the elements of popular discord. Sir 
Walter Raleigh affirmed, however, that it was dan- 
gerous to follow truth too near lest she kick out one's 
teeth. Nor is even higher literature inconsistent with 
the world of politics. We have only to look at that 
era in France, when, with scarcely an exception, the 
whole scholarsliip of the country took the direction of 
practical politics. All the eminent writers became at 
one portion of their lives either statesmen, or journal- 
ists, or pamphleteers. Some of them as Madame De 
Stael, Benjamin Constant, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, 
and Victor Hugo, after giving their younger days to 
literature were drawn into politics and gave their party 
or their country the active assistance of their pens. 
Others, like Guizot and Villemaiu, and Victor-Cousin, 
ism and political writings and became senators and 
representatives because they had been authors. 
Others, like Gruizot and Villemaiu, and Victor-Cousin, 
attained their ministerial positions chiefly through 
their literary renown. Nearly every French author 
of reputation became a contributor to the political 
periodicals of the day. The wonderful events of the 
French Eevolution and the times which followed pre- 
sented an irresistible attraction to men of literary abil- 
ity, while a free press and an elective chamber offered 



Scholarship and Country 89 

a field worthy of the noblest ambition. It was in this 
direction that they hoped to exercise an influence on 
the times in which they lived, and thus direct and con- 
trol public measures. Intellect, and intellect manifested 
mainly by the voice and the pen, became the single 
ruler of the nation. Louis XIV. himself gave patron- 
age to learning and communicated the impulse to his 
people. The result was manifest. Then the station of 
their representative men spread inspiration around the 
very place they frequented in life. In the theater were 
the dramatists, in the institute the illustrious authors, 
and in the other public edifices those who had been dis- 
tinguished for genius and learning. This was a spirit 
worthy of the countiy which privileged the family of 
La Fontaine to be forever exempt from taxes, and de- 
clared that the productions of the mind were not "seiz- 
able" when they would have attached Crebillon's rev- 
enue from his tragedies in payment of his debts. 

The tendency should be toward the absorption by 
the political, or rather the public, spirit of whatever 
the realm of intellect contains. It was only in this 
manner that such a high culture was developed in the 
Athenian mind. The young men might enjoy a con- 
versation with Socrates; they often heard the stately 
oratory of Pericles ; they witnessed the plays of Sopho- 
cles and Aristophanes; they walked amid the friezes 
of Phidias and studied the paintings of Zeuxis; they 
committed to memory the choruses of Aeschylus ; they 
heard the reading of Herodotus at the public games; 
they listened to the rhapsodists as they recited the 
Shield of Achilles and the Death of Argus. The Agora 
led directly to the Bema of Demosthenes ; the boys be- 
came critics of art. Wlien the sculptor complained of 
the light, the youth reminded him of the light of the 



90 Orations and Historical Addresses 

public square. It is not strange that such an age 
should have given to posterity the priceless legacy of 
the Greek literature. Eveiy department of human 
thought should contribute to influence an elevated pub- 
lic service just as Kaulbach, the great painter, did not 
limit himself to any one country, but his genius made 
all countries contribute to the celebrated picture of 
The Period of the Reformation. 

They may be seen, Columbus and Bacon, Paracelsus 
and Harvey, Petrarch and Shakesi^eare, Cervantes and 
Hans Sachs, Queen Elizabeth and Gustavus Adolphus, 
Huss and Savonarola, Gutenberg and Galileo. They 
all meet in a large Gothic hall and measure the earth, 
dig manuscripts from an old sarcophagus, scan verses 
on their fingers, or grasp their swords while Calvin ad- 
ministers the sacraments and the choir sings from a 
hymn book in the organ loft. It required all these ele- 
ments to perfect the grand achievement of art. In 
like manner public life should not look to the mere 
study of the science of politics alone, but poetry, elo- 
quence, whether of the schools or the bar, art of all 
kinds, the stage, society itself, should become the educa- 
tor and instructor of public sentiment. Society de- 
mands of every genius, be he orator or theologian, king 
or conqueror, soldier or statesman, what use he has 
made of his talents for the benefit of mankind. 

The progress of the age is the theme of orator and 
poet and essayist. Its characteristic is its advance- 
ment in the physical arts and sciences. Thought has 
been most given to those discoveries which tend to the 
comfort of mankind. We have given to the world a 
Morse, by whose inventive genius the currents of human 
thoughts are borne from one continent to another by 
the electric telegraph, telling the story of revolts and 



Scholarship and Country 91 

revolutions, of empires overthrown and dynasties es- 
tablished, of declarations of war and treaties of peace, 
of discoveries in science and achievements in art, of 
great statesmen fallen in death, of lights gone out and 
new luminaries glimmering on the horizon. We have 
given a Hoe to civilization, whose press is only second 
in usefulness to the art of printing itself. We have 
made rapid advances in every department of human 
industry. The invisible of to-day becomes the visible 
of to-morrow. The philosophers do not meet in the 
grove nor in the academy to hold converse on intel- 
lectual abstractions, but concern themselves about ques- 
tions of humanity. We have, in a word, realized the 
prophecy of the wisest statesman of France of his day, 
who informed the cultivated world more than a quarter 
of a century before the Declaration of Independence 
that a free, prosperous and great people was forming 
in the forests of America. This material progress has 
the tendency to make a people indifferent to the claims 
of country upon its scholarship and its aesthetic taste. 
The wise Ulysses lulled the watchful Cerberus to sleep 
by casting food to him steeped in honey. There was 
a constant progress in Rome for three centuries in 
most of the arts of life. In the absence of any moral 
disapproval of war they went on conquering and to 
conquer until nothing was left to conquer. The pax 
Romana was peace indeed, but it was a worse evil 
than war itself, for it changed the men to whom the 
cares and trials of national life would have been a 
source of virtue and power into a set of offensive and 
debauched provincials. There were no longer citizens 
of Rome who would purchase at full price the land 
on which the invader's camp was standing, else Caligula 
would not have amused himself with his horse, or Nero 



92 Orations and Historical Addresses 

with his fiddle. It is sad for a nation to die. The fall 
of a throne often only involves the ruin of a man— the 
line of descent. The fall of a Repiiblie involves the 
interests of every individual citizen, and reaches every 
home and every family. One cannot wander among 
the ruins of ancient Athens without a feeling of rever- 
ential sadness. There is a melancholy beauty in her 
broken columns and in her shattered tablatures. 
Greece added ingratitude to the ostracism of her schol- 
arship. Phocion in chains, and rising in the theater to 
receive an unjust sentence; Demosthenes at Calauria, 
in exile, and weeping as he looked toward her shores; 
Aristides in banishment, because he was called the 
Just; Cimon repulsed as a friend to Lacedaemon when 
he offered his life to his country; Solon heartbroken 
over a constitution which tyrants had overthrown; 
Socrates drinking hemlock as he discoursed of the im- 
mortality of the soul ; are chapters from her history. 
There was lost at last, through indifference, all spirit 
of nationality. Patriotism became exclusive. It is 
true that the Olympic and the Pythian games were open 
to all who could claim Hellenic blood and served to 
promote and encourage a feeling of union; but it re- 
quired all the persuasion of Miltiades to unite them 
on the field of Marathon, and all the stratagem of Them- 
istocles to strike a blow for liberty when their very 
existence was threatened by Persian invasion. There 
is a lesson for us as individuals in the olive groves 
of the academy; there is a warning for us as a nation 
in her prostrate temples. 

In all ages the life of the citizen has been subject 
to the call of liis country. The honors of victory have 
been chanted as much as the love of woman. Achilles is 
no longer fed on honey and milk, but on bear's flesh 



Scholarship and Country 93 

and lion's marrow, that he may be strong for the con- 
flict. The stately orations of Pericles, the splendors 
of Tully, as well as the sweet verses of Virgil and 
the poems of Horace, all tell of courage and sacri- 
fice. Patriotism enters into men's hearts and men's 
lives. It tells its own story on historic fields. The 
pen of Homer pictures in bold Hector all the virtues 
of polished war. The glory manifold of every nation 
has come by the path of human sacrifice, of human 
thought, of toil, and even of life itself. The best na- 
tional ideas have been baptized in blood. The sublime 
moment of this Eepublic, in the review of the century, 
was the awakening of the people to the call of an im- 
perilled country. At the call to arms the sledge slept 
noiseless on the anvil, the shuttle forgot its cunning, 
the plane lay idle on the work bench, and the plow 
rested in the half started furrow. The beginning of 
the nation could only be established by a long struggle ; 
by the example of severe fortune; by the increasing 
avowal of truth; and by the never failing enthusiasm 
which is stronger than any misfortune. It could only 
be maintained by the tears of women and the blood 
of brave men. Is the manhood that would send the 
soldier to the field of battle any more worthy of itself 
than the manhood that would send him to the public 
service of his country? The minds that have estab- 
lished great states have found a duty in the service 
of the people that has its reward. Solon who gave a 
constitution is remembered not less than Miltiades who 
was immortalized at Marathon. If men can afford to 
die for their country, men can afford to live for their 
country. In the century of our history there has been 
nothing written to better develop that spirit than the 



94 Orations and Historical Addresses 

little volume by Edward Everett Hale, entitled, The 
Man Without a Country. It accomplished more than 
the work of a bayonet. It was a pen mightier than a 
sword. It awakens every emotion of patriotism where 
it tells that Philip Nolan, lieutenant in the navy of the 
United States, wished for an epitaph after knowing 
what it was to want for a country, these words : "Here 
lies one who loved his country more than any man 
loved her, but who deserved less at her hands. ' ' There 
are many things in life dearer even than life itself. 
Honor, in the noblest sense, patriotism, duty, all are 
dearer. We must be faithful to all these, else all the 
graves are in vain. The true religion of humanity is 
the uplifting of the many to the higher level of ad- 
vanced citizenshiiJ. 

What higher mission can there be than to apply to 
society the great doctrines of peace and liberty and 
justice; to teach that patriotism which means love of 
country and helps the mind to study the best path 
of conduct toward that country? What higher mission 
than to found a new order of things on the ruins of 
the old ; to meet with constancy the reflex of the wave ; 
to combine the preservation of old tastes with the 
changes demanded by the times; to oppose the in- 
trigues of disappointed friends ; to defeat the schemes 
of concealed enemies; to innovate and yet to conserve; 
to protect freedom itself from the i^erilous activities 
quickened into life by its own spirit; to raise, in a 
word, from the disorganized elements of a civil war a 
great political temjile, dedicated to the liberty of man? 

These are the tasks of genuine statesmanship ; states- 
manship means a higher freedom ; statesmanshijj means 
a better liberty; statesmanship is a timely use of op- 
portunities. The word liberty may be found in Cic- 



Scholarship and Country 95 

ero's Ethics, but that writer knew nothing of that word, 
as now understood h\ the freedman who has be- 
come the freeman. The word citizen may be found 
in classical literature, but no orator of the forum ever 
realized that word as now conceived by the serf who 
has become the citizen. The idea that man has a right 
to life and liberty may be found in all the poetry of 
the world, but it was given to this day and this gen- 
eration to see it written in blood as the basis of national 
life. It is the duty of this generation to see that this 
principle is not forgotten in the so-called magniticent 
utilities of American life. 

Lord Bolingbroke, speaking of the high calling of 
public life, says that, to govern a society of freemen by 
a constitution founded on the eternal rules of right, and 
directed to provide the happiness of the whole and 
each individual, is the noblest prerogative that can be- 
long to man. It is that mission I would glorify. Lit- 
erature is great, art is great, poetry is great, states- 
manship is great only for the advancement of human 
happiness. If Horace Mann lamented that in Euro- 
pean exhibitions the fine arts were always in a more 
conspicuous place than the useful arts, and if Theodore 
Parker complained that in Rome the studios were 
better than the carfieuter shops, it should be remem- 
bered that in the great gallery of the world, to which 
all individuals and nations contribute, the highest 
places are reserved for those who forget self 
and accomplish most good for the common human- 
ity. To have reached that niche is more lasting than 
the Roman laurel. It is not so much then whether one 
die in early manhood or in old age, as whether that 
existence while it lasts be useful to mankind and one's 
country. It was only twenty-one years before Ther- 



96 Orations and Historical Addresses 

mopylae that Leonidas had been carried as a babe in 
his mother's arms, while old Sophocles, charged with 
dotage by an ungrateful son, read his Oedipus at Col- 
onus, and was earned home in triumph. 

I exalt country, gentlemen of the fraternity, as 
worthy of the scholarship, worthy of the ambition which 
Pope, and after him Lord Mansfield, proclaimed to be 
the pursuit of noble ends by noble means, so that, 
through culture and patriotism, there may be realized 
the ideal state. 

"Fear, Craft and Avarice 
Cannot rear a State, 
Out of dust to build 
What is more than dust. 
Walls Amphion piled, 
Phoebiis stablish must, 
When the Muses nine 
With the Virtues meet, 
Find to their design 
An Atlantic seat, 
By green orchard boughs, 
Tended from the heat. 
Where the statesman plows 
Furrow for the wheat ; 
When the Church is social worth. 
When the State-House is the hearth. 
Then the perfect State is come. 
The Republican at home." 



CONSCIENCE IN PUBLIC LIFE 

Young Gentlemen of the Societies and of the University 
of Virginiia: 

It was said of Cicero that at ttie age of sixteen he 
was brought before the Praetor in the Forum, and, with 
the usual ceremonies, laid aside the toga praetexta, 
and assumed the toga virilis, which indicated that he 
took upon himself the responsibilities and duties which 
belong to public life. To-day many of you have 
reached that period in your education which established 
usage has invested with a deep and peculiar interest. 
The duties of the student, so far as selections from 
Quiutilian and propositions from Euclid are concerned, 
must be formally laid aside, and fi'om these halls, con- 
secrated to Genius and Eloquence, the graduates must 
take their places for honor or shame among educated 
men, and live and act in a Republic of thoughtful, in- 
telligent citizens. This is not only commencement in 
the collegiate sense, but to those who receive the de- 
grees, the commencement of a career of usefulness or 
uselessness. 

Learning is ordinarily associated with secluded clois- 
ters and academic groves, but the elevation of public 
sentiment in the State is not less the imperative duty 
of the scholar. All the instructions of the schools should 
only be regarded as tributary to the right discharge 
of that duty. There can be no higher mission for the 

Delivered before the Washington and Jefferson Literary 
Societies of the University of Virginia, on Commencement 
Day, July 3, 1879. 

7 [97] 



98 Orations and Historical Addresses- 

culture of the land than to educate the public conscience 
upon all subjects of mora lit j' and philosophy, of philan- 
thropy and i^oiitics. It is an obligation— not alone a 
privilege. 

John Milton, more than two hundred years ago, and 
in an hour when human freedom was threatened by 
an arbitrary power, uttered the heroic truth in these 
words : "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered vir- 
tue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out 
and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race when 
that immortal garland is to be run for, notwithstanding 
dust and heat." 

When we remember the scholars who have been edu- 
cated here, and whose voices have commanded the at- 
tention of listening assemblies; when we think of the 
many who have contributed in the republic of letters 
to the enlargement of the boundaries of human ad- 
vancement in every department of thought; when we 
contemplate those who, in the quiet and more secluded 
walks of life have been faithful to duty as citizens and 
neighbors and friends, we can understand not only how 
powerful for good has been the University of Virginia, 
but what lasting influence for right and morality will 
yet go forth to benefit the generations of the future. 
Society has a right to exact a generous return from 
every alumnus of this institution. The commonwealth 
of learning has a right to the best gifts and noblest 
zeal of every one of its citizens. 

If it be true, as Plato says, that we are not bom for 
ourselves alone, but that our country claims her share, 
and our friends claim their share of us, then will it not 
be inappropriate, even in a society of scholars and 
among those clothed with the responsibilities created 
by the privileges of education, to speak of personal in- 



Conscience in Public Life 99 

tegrity or conscience in public life. This is, perhaps, 
the more fitting to the occasion and this place, since we 
have gathered under the verj- shadow of Monticello, 
and near the dust of him who so well exemplified this 
principle in life. There need be no fear that politics 
will exclude culture. The spirit of scholarship will 
still remain. Coleridge says that Greece would still be 
the laud of the heroes, though all the sands of Africa 
should cover her cornfields and olive gardens, and not 
a flower were left in Hymettus in which a bee could 
murmur. 

In all the generations since Solon gave a constitu- 
tion to more than a commonwealth, and that he was 
has been no man who has been more instrumental in 
the formative period of a nation's history, and directed 
his country with such conscience, with such courage, 
true to the glorious ideal of a Republic. It is enough 
for posterity to know that he wrote the declaration 
which proclaimed the equality of man for a nation ; that 
he was the founder of an institution which gave instruc- 
tion to more than a commonwealth, and that he was 
the author of the statute which gave religious freedom 
to Virginia. Thomas Jefferson truly was nurtured in 
republican air, and inspired with republican traditions. 
There breathes forth in every public utterance a sincere 
love for his country and a sublime faith in her destiny. 

It is not intended to follow the casuists or the meta- 
physicians in their definitions of conscience. Con- 
science means self-knowledge in the broadest sense, but 
it also implies a moral standard of action in the mind, 
as well as a consciousness of our own actions. It is, 
indeed, the inspiring motive of all heroic actions. It 
is that which is truly commendable in its own nature. 
It is the foundation of character. It is the only real 



100 Orations and Historical Addresses 

support of self-respect. Whewell, in liis Moral 
Treatises, makes the distinction of an internal moral 
standard as one part of conscience, and self-knowledge 
or consciousness as another part. The one is described 
as the internal law, the other as the internal accuser, 
witness and judge. It not only points out the path of 
duty, but it impels one to walk in that path of duty. 
It is something more than the finger-board pointing the 
way. It is that monitor within, as the old philosophers 
said, which told them to look toward the stars. Con- 
science, whether applied to public or private life, is 
accepted as that motive which prompts the right course. 
It is the "ought" as distinguished from the "ought 
not," rather than that which expediency may dictate. 
The President of Princeton College, Dr. James Mc- 
Cosh, furnishes the best idea of conscience : 

"Its office is not to declare what is, but what ought 
to be. Its mood is not the indicative, like the reason, 
nor the conditional like the understanding, nor the opta- 
tive like the will, but the imperative. Other powers 
approve of truth, but this of virtue. Others guard us 
from error, but this from crime. It sits on a throne like 
a king; its rules are obligations; its affirmations are 
statutes; its proclamations are enactments. It sits in 
judgment as a judicature, and its decisions are com- 
mands ; its sentences are condemnations ; its smiles are 
rewards and its frowns are reproofs. It asserts not 
power but claims which assert their superiority to 
power. It sets forth not might but right, which in 
its nature is above might. It often says of what is, 
that it should not be. It frequently lends its counte- 
nance to what is despised among mankind, and pro- 
nounces a sentence of disapproval on that which is 
most highly esteemed. It is not afraid to attack power 



Conscience in Public Life 101 

in high places, while it will espouse and defend the 
cause of the persecuted and the heli^less. It rests on 
its own prerogative, and it wears the crown and wields 
the sceptre, whether its claims are acknowledged or 
denied." 

Eight is radical and eteiTial. There is such a thing 
as immutable morality, and this immutable morality 
is the foundation of conscience. It is not limited to any 
age, but belongs to all ages. It has no horizon but 
humanity itself. It existed in the heroic age of Greece, 
in the Augustan age of Rome, in the middle ages of 
Italy, and in the time of the commonwealth of England. 
It belonged equally to Solon and ]\Iarcus Aurelius, and 
to the Medici, and Algernon Sidney. Pym, the man of 
the Puritan stamp, had it in an eminent degree. 

It is contended by most speculative writers against 
a democratic form of government, that it cannot resist 
the dishonesty of designing men, and that it is power- 
less to contend against ambition, intrigue and corrup- 
tion. This is not less true of aristocracies and mon- 
archies, liut it must be confessed that a republican form 
of government of all others requires the support of 
morals and virtue. Nations, like individuals, will 
prosper only in the observance of the moral law. They 
will decline only through violations of this law. The 
only power in a representative government which can 
withstand the force of a misguided popular sentiment 
will be found in the conscience of the educated masses. 
This is done by not only forming a sound public opin- 
ion, but by resisting an unsound public sentiment. 

Timur, the mighty Tartar, in the rhetoric of the 
Orient, said that sovereignty is like a tent, the poles 
of which should be justice, the ropes equity, and the 
stakes philanthropy, in order that it may stand the 



102 Orations and Historical Addresses 

blasts of adversity. There can be no real and perma- 
nent progress that does not begin within and work out- 
wardly. Every civilization will attest this truth, from 
the age of Pericles to the nineteenth century. It is the 
teaching of all philosophy, as well as the lesson of all 
history. Men, high-minded men— not battlements — 
constitute the state. 

Pope Pius VII., during the popular commotions of 
his times, recognized this principle in ethics by insisting 
that that virtue is alone capable of bringing mankind 
to perfection and preparing them for happiness, whose 
duties are prescribed by the laws of nature and more 
fully brought to light by the Christian dispensation. 
It can alone be the foundation of a prosperous democ- 
racy. This sentiment is greater than the Caesars. 

The necessity of this conscience cannot be over esti- 
mated in a government where a written constitution is 
regarded as a restraining rather than as an enabling 
instrument. Hamilton, in his vindication of Washing- 
ton's proclamation of neutrality, and Jackson, in his 
paper to the cabinet, maintained in effect that the con- 
stitution, in regard to the exercise of executive author- 
ity, is only a restraining power, and that which is not 
forbidden may be exercised. The truth alone can make 
us free. Democracy will never lack demagogues any 
more than desjjots will lack dependents. It will often 
be necessary to speak unwelcome truths at critical 
periods, and popular violence must be confi'onted by 
stern self-reliance. There are times when everything 
must be staked upon the result. "Come," said Ney at 
Waterloo, "and see how a marshal of France can die !" 

This conscience is not limited to mere obedience to 
statute or common law. It recognizes in their com- 
plete authority the unwritten laws of humanity. It 



Conscience in Public Life 103 

animated Saint Louis, who would not swerve to the 
right nor to the left, and with William Penn- it accepts 
the brotherhood of man. The law prescribes but a 
small part of the moral duties of man. It is true that 
good morals depend very much for their advancement 
upon wise legislative action, just as wise legislative 
action may depend upon good morals, but there is the 
guilt of opportunities neglected and capacities for use- 
fulness unemployed. The suppression of the truth is 
frequently as culpable as the commission of an untruth. 
The witness is affirmed to tell the whole truth. The 
Good Master told His disciples that in His Father's 
house there were many mansions, and then, in the full- 
ness of His affection, added: "If it were not so I 
would have told you." In like simplicity, when the 
dying Socrates had ceased to discourse of the immor- 
tality of the soul, he remembered the indebtedness to 
Asclepius, and with the last breath directed that the 
obligation should be paid. 

Francis Lieber, in his Political Ethics, says: "Jus- 
tice—if we designate by this sacred word that virtue 
which is the constant will, desire and readiness faith- 
fully to give every one his due, and if we understand 
by due not merely that to which every one has a right 
by the positive and enacted laws of the state, but that 
which is his as man, as individual, as moral being and 
as our neighbor— is that virtue which is embodied in 
the great practical moral law that we should do even 
so to others as we would that they should do to us. 
Justice was early acknowledged to be the supreme 
virtue, including all others; it is that virtue or ethic 
disposition which prompts man to acknowledge others 
as his equals, and thus become the very foundation of 
the state, and remains at once its cement and energy; 



104 Orations and Historical Addresses 

that virtue which, above all others, establishes confi- 
dence, peace and righteousness among men individually 
and collectively, as states or nations, and comprehends 
fairness, equity and even clemency." 

Corruption, whether in a monarchy, an aristocracy 
or a. democracy, may be rendered punishable by guil- 
lotine, or stock, or prison, and will be punished so long 
as a sense of riglit characterizes the community, but 
this right itself cannot be enacted. We go beyond the 
declaration of the first Napoleon, that public morals 
are the natural complement of all laws, and that they 
of themselves form an entire code, by insisting that 
good laws are the natural result of good morals, and 
that no civilization which is not founded on a perfect 
S3"stem of moral truth can be lasting and progressive. 
This ideal law was recognized even in darker ages, 
and the genius of Sophocles gives expression to this 
thought : 

"No ordinance of man can e'er surpass 
The settled laws of Nature and of God, 
Nor written there on pages of a book. 
Nor were they pa.ssed to-day or yesterday. 
"We know not whence they are; but this we know, 
That they from all eternity have been. 
And shall from all eternity endure." 

Montesquieu lays down honor as the fundamental 
principle of monarchy, fear as the basis of despotism; 
but proclaimed, though the subject of an absolute mon- 
arch, that virtue is the basis of republican government. 
Virtue here has not the inteipretation which was given 
the word during the Renaissance, when poetry, paint- 
ing, sculpture and the fine arts were called the "vir- 
tues": but that virtue is intended which is personified 
in Tennyson's Northern Farmer, alluded to by 



Conscience in Public Life 105 

Maurice, aud which promi^ted Martin Luther to go 
to the Diet if there were as many devils in Worms as 
there were tiles on the roofs of the houses, and which 
made John Hampden declare that he would not pay 
the forty shilling tax of ship money even if the re- 
sistance would involve him in ruin and his country in 
civil war. 

This virtue, which is synonymous with conscience 
and is the basis of all heroic action in private life as 
well as in religion and science, is of equal importance 
for the essential and lasting prosperity of a nation. 
It would limit in private life the trickery of the trades- 
man, the imkindness of the husband, the harshness of 
the father, the impatience of the wife, the disrespect 
of the child, the exaction of the employer and the negli- 
gence of the employe, not less than it would in public 
life limit the tyranny of the tja'ant, the scheming of 
the statesman, the dissembling of the diplomatist, the 
plotting of the politician, the prejudice of the partisan, 
and the injustice of the judge. When carried into the 
profession of juris|)rudeuce it would supplant the 
severer sentences and the hard syllables of legal en- 
actment with the softer words of charity and love. It 
would teach clauses of legislative authority to embody 
noble sentiments, to obey divine impulses, and shadow 
forth sublime inspiration. It would make the pre- 
vention of crime and not the punishment of the crim- 
inal the end of all statutes. It would, in a word, make 
humanity the oracle and the lawgiver. It would look 
about, like Diogenes with a lantern, to seek not an 
honest man alone, but to make honest men, by first in- 
culcating honest principles. It would make Xantippe 
a better wife and the old philosopher a more domestic 
man. 



106 Orations and Historical Addresses 

There is, perhaps, no better illustration of the idea 
of conscience which should be applied to public and 
private life than the honestum of Cicero. He treated 
of the subject at length in his De Offtciis. In his un- 
hesitating choice of right in preference to expediency, 
as the rule of conduct which should govern in both 
public and private relations, and in conforming to a 
moral ideal full of correspondence to some perfect rule 
of action, he is a safer guide than even Paley with his 
teachings. There cannot be found a better practical 
exposition of the whole duty of man in all Pagan 
antiquity, nor even in the pages of modern philosophy. 
He makes truth, justice, fortitude and decorum as 
the constituent parts of virtue and the sources from 
which all human duties ai'e derived. The great Roman 
avows the conviction that right and wrong are not 
dependent upon the mere expediency or inexpediency 
of the sui^posed conduct. He contends for the morally 
excellent per se, and urges that the useful and the good 
are not inconsistent, but coincident and harmonious. 
In the work De Legihus he says : "The impulse which 
directs to right conduct and deters from crime is not 
only older than the ages of nations and cities, but 
coeval with that Divine Being who sees and rules both 
the heavens and the earth. Nor did Tarquin less vio- 
late that eternal law, though in his reign there might 
have been no written law at Eome against such vio- 
lence ; for the principle that impels us to right conduct 
and warns us against guilt springs from out of the 
very nature of things. It did not begin to be a law 
when it was first written, but when it originated, and 
it is coeval with the Divine Mind." 

It is only necessary to appreciate the sublimity of 
these teachings by comparing them with later writers. 



Conscience in Public Life 107 

Contrast the ideal conscience of the century before the 
Christian era with that of the seventeenth century, 
when Hobbes, of Mahnesbury, confronts this idea with 
the argument that pure selfishness is tlie motive and 
end of moral action, and makes religion and morals 
alike to consist in passive conformity to the dogmas 
and laws of the reigning sovereign, or that of Paley, 
who declares that actions are to be estimated by their 
tendency; that whatever is expedient is right; that 
it is the utility of any moral rule which constitutes 
the obligation of it; that actions in the abstract are 
right or wrong according to their tendencies, and that 
the agent is virtuous or vicious according to his design. 
These teachings would lead man to believe that he 
was born for himself and for himself only, and that 
with regard to country he is to think of it as Shakes- 
peare's Pistol thought of the world— "this world's 
mine oyster which I with sword will open." 

There is more genuine humanity in the honest ion 
of Cicero than in all the philosophy of the centuries. 
It is the higher law— or rather the highest law— not 
in the sense, however, that it regards statutes or en- 
actments of no binding force when antagonized by con- 
science, but in that it gives vitality to all good laws 
and makes operative every right declaration, whether 
of court or convocation, whether of commons or con- 
gress. Conscience is a matter of culture, and has its 
government in the intellect. While the law remains 
upon the statute book, it must be obeyed as a prin- 
ciple of duty, lest disobedience become a matter of 
condemnation to the conscience as much as the law 
itself. The alternative of revolution and disorder is 
just as sure to be i^resented by an issue of conscience 
regarding the morality of the law as it would be by 



108 Orations and Historical Addresses 

an issue of judgment touching its expediency. The 
safe rule is to obey imtil freedom of discussion shall 
change the policy of a nation's administration. The 
last alternative is found in revolution. The time and 
necessity of the appeal must rest with the people alone. 
Some writer has said that there never was a revolt 
without a reason. 

Cicero, in his letter to his son, says: "But when 
you view everything with reason and reflection, of all 
the connections none is more weighty, none is more 
clear than that between every individual and his coun- 
try. Our parents are dear to us; our children, our 
kinsmen, are dear to us, but our country alone com- 
prehends all the endearments of all, for which what 
good man would hesitate if he could do her service. 
* * * But were a computation or comparison set 
up of those objects to which our chief duty should 
be paid, the principal are our country and our parents, 
by whose service we are laid under the strongest obli- 
gation; the next our children and entire family, who 
depend upon us alone without having any other refuge ; 
the nest our agreeable kinsmen, who generally share 
our fortune in common." 

It was that high sense of duty which prompted him 
to hold himself aloof from the first triumvirate- 
Caesar, Pompey and Crassus— because of the firm con- 
viction that the alliance threatened the ruin of the 
Eepublic. It is the statesmanship that consults the 
sun, not the wind. It takes care that the Republic 
shall receive no detriment. This morality hates in- 
justice and cares not whether that injustice comes from 
private life and wrongs our neighbor, or whether it 
comes from the judge and perverts justice, or whether 
it comes from ecclesiastical council and injures the 



Conscience in Public Life 109 

confiding, or whether it comes from the crown, making 
boundaries to oscillate and the rivers to run red with 
blood to gratify human ambition. It finds expression 
in the statutes, which gather into their embrace the 
poor, the oppressed, the outcast, the wretched, which 
consider their miseries and their misfortunes for the 
purpose of relieving them; which protect women and 
children in factories and workshops and garrets from 
prolonged and unpaid toil; which follow the miner as 
he delves in the mines and watch over him in the dark- 
ness and danger of his employment; which accom- 
pany the emigrant in his melancholy exile, and cheer 
him in the moments of his despondency ; which provide 
a ministry of education and comfort for the unfor- 
tunate child of want and crime, and give hope and con- 
fidence and opportunity to the degraded and dying. 
It thinks with Chremes, one of the characters of Ter- 
ence, that there is nothing which has a relation to 
mankind in which it has not a concern. It will always 
contribute to the advancement of a common humanity 
with a charity as broad as human life, with a toleration 
as universal as ignorance and the infirmity of men, 
and with a mutual forgiveness as omnipresent as the 
shadows of human life. It speaks, as with the voice 
from the mountain, to the weary and heavy laden who 
are seeking rest. 

It carried Florence Nightingale, as with the form of 
an angel, into the hospitals of the Crimea. It took 
Francis Xavier— the missionary of the Society of 
Jesus— with his Bible and breviary and wallet, across 
the ocean to India and the Indian Isles, and even to 
China and Japan, where, after eleven years of faith- 
ful effort he laid down his life on the sands of a lonely 



110 Orations and Historical Addresses 

island in the Chinese Seas with his cross in his hands, 
and, with tears of joy in his eyes, breathing the words : 
"In Thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded." 

The logical result of the proposition, that whatever 
is expedient is right, leads directly to Machiavellism. 
This is the spirit of The Prince. This was the teach- 
ing of the secretary of state when Florence was gov- 
erned by the Council of Ten, and this the code of moral- 
ity advanced by one who conducted the diplomacy of 
the Republic of Florence until the sons of Lorenzo the 
Magnificent were established on the throne. The 
stability of the government is not made to depend on 
the strength of virtue by which it is sustained, but 
rather uj^on the deception which can be employed, and 
the advantage which can be obtained. It is the same 
code of morals practiced by Jugurtha, and in later 
times by Sir Robert Walpole— that all men can be 
bribed in some foim or another, either by ofiSce, or 
money, or promises of reward. It is the same teach- 
ing which made Dubois the scandal of the Church and 
Jeffries the reproach of the law. It is the same stand- 
ard of action which called Lentulus, two years after 
his conviction of extortion, to the censorship, in order 
that he might watch over the morals of the people, 
and keep guard over the purity of the magistrates. 

In the chapter respecting the obligations of the 
princes to keep their engagements, Machiavolli says: 
"Nevertheless experience has shown us that those 
princes of our times who made the least account of 
their word and honor have done the greatest things, 
and that by dint of craft and circumvention they have 
for the most part got the better of others who pro- 
ceeded with sincerity and regard to their engagements. 
* * * A wise prince, therefore, might not regard 



Conscience in Public Life 111 

liis word when the keeijing of it will result to his prej- 
udice, and the causes no longer subsist which obliged 
him to give it. This is a maxim which should not be 
inculcated if the generality of mankind were good, but 
as they are far otherwise, and will not perform their 
engagements to you, you are not obliged to keep any 
measure with them. A prince will never want color- 
able i^retense to varnish the breach of his faith, of 
which we might bring numberless examples, of no very 
ancient date, and show how many treaties, how many 
solemn promises have been perfidiously violated by 
princes ; and those who have acted the fox have always 
succeeded best in their affairs. However, it is neces- 
sary to disguise this craft and so be a thorough master 
of simulation and dissimulation. For some men are 
so simple, and others so eager to get out of present 
difficulty, that whoever knows how to act this part will 
always find dupes to his hy^jocrisy. * * * It is 
honorable to seem merciful, courteous, religious, punc- 
tual and sincere, and indeed to be so; but it is neces- 
sary at the same time that he should have his mind 
so modelled and be so much master of himself, that he 
may know how to alter his conduct upon occasiou. * 
* * He will often be obliged, for the preservation 
of his state, to violate the rules of charity, humanity 
and religion ; and therefore he should be really pre- 
pared to shift his sails according to the wind that blows, 
and never to do evil if he can help it; but if he is com- 
pelled by downright necessity, to make no scruple 
about it. He must constantly be upon his guard, that 
nothing may even drop from his mouth, but what seems 
to proceed from a heart full of goodness, mercy, truth, 
humanity and religion, but particularly of the last, for 
mankind in general form their judgment rather from 



112 Orations and Historical Addresses 

appearances than realities. * * * There is a 
prince alive at this time who has nothing but peace 
and good faith on his lips, and yet if he had inclined to 
one or the other, he long ago would have lost both his 
reputation and his kingdom. ' ' This prince was Ferdi- 
nand, King of Aragon and Castile, who o'wed the ac- 
quisition of Naples and Navarre to perfidy and bad 
faith. His reputation consisted in the declaration of 
one of his contemporaries, who used to say of him, that 
Ferdinand should swear to some God in whom he be- 
lieved before he would trust him. 

There never was a teaching without a personifica- 
tion. Caesar Borgia fortunately furnished an illustra- 
tion of the practical teachings of Machiavelli 's diplo- 
macy, and even his example is commended in "The 
Prince" as a pattern for imitation by other rulers. 

This prince— or rather duke— formed the hopes of his 
future greatness upon the faithlessness of his obli- 
gations, and upon the dissensions of the Italian no- 
bility. He corrupted first the nobility at Rome by dis- 
tributing pensions and presents. He added murder to 
bribery by the assassination of his brother. He added 
shameful brutality to bribery and murder by causing 
the Swiss guards to be massacred for some supposed 
affront to his mother. He deposed the Duke D 'Urbino, 
the lawful ruler of Romagna, and condemned Remino 
D'Orco to the cruel death of cutting his body in twain 
and exposing it to public view in the Piazza. He stran- 
gled several of the lords of the Ursini family after they 
were helpless through his perfidy and deception, and 
even held it to be his duty to exterminate all whom 
he had forcibly deprived of their states and posses- 
sions, lest they might rise up to contest his usurpation 
and lawlessness. Such is the character of the ideal 



Conscience in Public Life 113 

prince. The avengiug- Nemesis came at last. Cfpsar 
Borgia, after exile and imprisonment, lost his life as 
a volunteer in a fi'uitless struggle under the walls of 
Viana. It required a page to discover his body on the 
field, but his iniquity was known of all men. The 
secret of embalming the body perished with the Egyp- 
tians, but Cfpsar Borgia is embalmed for all time to 
come. 

The cunning diplomatist may attempt in the first 
Decenuale to create an imaginary hero and denounce 
his former ideal, but a science of statecraft, separate 
from and independent of every moral consideration, 
could have no better personification than the able and 
audacious Duke who was restrained by no scruples 
of conscience and deterred by no moral consideration 
from accomplishing his fixed purposes. "We listen 
rather to the voice which comes to us from Mount 
Vernon, as the counsel of an affectionate friend, and 
who for nearly a half century in the service of his 
country, made these principles the rule of conduct : 
"Observe good faith and justice toward all nations; 
cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and 
morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good 
policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy 
of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a 
great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and 
too novel example of a people always guided by an 
exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, 
in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a 
plan would richly repay any temporary advantage 
which might be lost by a strict adherence to it! Can 
it be that Providence has not connected the permanent 
felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, 
at least, is recommended by every sentiment which 



114 Orations and Historical Addresses 

ennobles human nature. Alas ! is it rendered impos- 
sible by its vices?" The great Italian may sleep 
quietly in the church of Santa Croce, where his bones, 
after remaining undistinguished for more than two 
hundred years, were laid to rest by an English noble- 
man, but wherever his teachings may take root, like 
the story of Cadmus, who sowed the teeth of a serpent 
which he had killed, there will spring up a race of men 
to fight each other until all shall be slain. Whatever 
is expedient is not always right. Conscience is king. 
' ' Neither imperial dignities nor the gloom of solitude, ' ' 
says Tacitus, "could save Tiberius from himself." All 
the perfumes of Arabia, says Lady Macbeth, cannot 
sweeten this little hand— the hand red with the blood 
of Duncan. 

Without general morality there can be no sound com- 
monwealth. Good laws elevate, cultivate, perpetuate. 
It may be aece^jted as an axiom that whatever force 
at the particular time is in the ascendency will de- 
termine the legislation of a country. This dominant 
force will gather and control other forces. The very 
winds will be its allies. In an absolute monarchy there 
will always be a tendency toward despotism, in an 
aristocracy toward an oligai'chy, in a democracy to- 
ward communism. If we would have a good govern- 
ment, there must be the ascendency of the moral prin- 
ciples. Knowledge and conscience must be the con- 
trolling forces in society. Prayers were once offered 
for a "blessed stranding," in order that the people 
along the shores might prosper from the misfortunes 
of those whose vessels had gone to the breakers. Every 
day and every hour has its exigencies and its imme- 
diate demands. Public wants are constantly changing, 
and commotion will come as the written law prescribes 



Conscience in Public Life 115 

one course of action and the necessities of the people 
seem to demand another. Professional skill, whether 
in law, or medicine, or theolog\% or any of the sciences, 
needs only to be possessed by the few; but social and 
civic virtues are necessary to every citizen of a com- 
monwealth. Political power is valued more than polit- 
ical liberty. There can be no more dangerous enemy 
to liberty than a restless ambition for power, un- 
checked by the restraints which should regulate and 
govern its exercise. If power is conferred without re- 
sponsibility, it will be exercised without justice. The 
private interest is then considered before the public 
weal. There will be required a broad culture for the 
comprehensive grasp of principles, for the ability to 
reach proper conclusions, as well as to direct other 
minds to correct results. Conscience and heroic action 
will be demanded to correctly apply these principles 
to administration. We live in a republic of equal, in- 
telligent, patriotic, self asserting citizens, and where 
it is often necessary to soften the ardor of the partisan 
without ostracising him entirely from an interest in 
public affairs. We live in a republic which should 
have no points of compass and no degrees of latitude. 
We live in a republic where there is need of the fel- 
lowshii^ of the good and the strong and the brave in 
every part of the land to contend against the new forms 
of aristocracy which the agencies of modern society 
have created. We live in a republic where freedom 
itself must be protected from the perilous activities 
quickened into life by its own fearless spirit, and where 
new defenses for democracy must be discovered in 
the new trials of its life. 

The condition of our society should awaken the seri- 
ous thought of every lover of peace and the welfare 



116 Orations and Historical Addresses 

of his country. There are demagogues enough who can 
raise a storm, but who cannot control the elements of 
popular discord. The law should be invested with a 
supreme majesty. Less than three years ago more 
than forty millions of people stood trembling with great 
anxiety, lest a call to arms — more terrible than the 
fire alarm at midnight— should again destroy the peace 
if not the very existence of the government itself. The 
tribunal of last resort announced the decision, and the 
threatened tumult was stilled by the supreme regard 
for the law which the public conscience demands for 
the peace of our streets and the quiet of our homes. 
He is an enemy of society and public peace who would 
seek to let loose those passions, lest not only titles to 
the presidency, but even the j^residency itself, would 
perish in the ruins. Less than three years ago the 
crowded thoroughfares of more than one American city 
echoed with musketry because of great popular dis- 
order. The worst passions of men seemed to crystal- 
lize and consolidate into forms like vultures, while the 
very horrors of the French Eevolution appeared in 
visible outlines amid the glow of burning buildings. 
The supreme regard for the law through an awakened 
public conscience brought order out of confusion. He is 
an enemy of public peace who would quicken those ele- 
ments into life lest the smoldering embers may kindle 
a flame of desolation like that over which Marius wept 
on the plains of Carthage. Do not laugh. Robe- 
spierre laughed and went to the wall. It was only a 
spectre in the camp at Sardis that unnei*ved the heart 
of Brutus and destroyed the political system that made 
the arbitress of the world. Conscience to-day consists 
in strangling the Catilines in public life, by the strong 
cord of public opinion. 



Conscience in Public Life 117 

It cannot be denied that tlie country is losing some- 
thing of the character which it possessed when Jeffer- 
son passed away, as fades a day of summer into the 
stillness of midnight. His prophetic eyes saw only an 
unclouded horizon in which arose picture after picture 
of national splendor. In official life there is that grow- 
ing disposition for speculation and profit— like thieveiy 
and stratagem among the Spartans, where the re- 
morse was connected with failure and the shame only 
attached to detection. There seems to be more of a 
willingness on the part of the people to abandon them- 
selves to the guidance of demagogues, who would 
drive the disreputable trade of artifice and intrigue. 
Patronage has created a large political hierarchy for 
the control of partisan politics. This class, organized 
and disciplined, Briareus-like, has a hundred hands to 
reach for the spoils of position and place. It directs 
the actions of the agents, just as Charles X., shortly 
before the last French Revolution, sent orders to the 
civil officers throughout the kingdom to vote for cer- 
tain candidates for the chamber of Deputies. They 
do not rejoice with Epaminondas when refused place, 
that their country has so many better men than them- 
selves. Like Achilles they sulk in the tent. 

The laxity of conscience is witnessed in public dis- 
cussion. Willful calumnies and fictitious statements 
are boldly proclaimed. The highest legislative body 
in the country, where the very sanctity of the place 
should command silence, echoes and re-echoes with 
crimination and recrimination. The reputation of 
men is attacked under the deeei^tive excuse of party 
warfare. The victory of a party is too often con- 
sidered the sole object of government. 

There are lessons, too, which come to us from the 



118 Orations and Historical Addresses 

history of the bench. The independence of the ju- 
diciary is threatened. The name of the fearless Coke 
survives in honor a degenerate tribunal. The blessed 
memory of Lord Hale is still fragrant, and receives 
peipetual benedictions. The indignant clamor of the 
house of commons made Finch, the attorney-general 
of James II., take his seat in shame and confusion, 
because he had procured the conviction of Lord Rus- 
sell. We look to the grand character of Lord Mans- 
field whom Erskine described as the awful form and 
figure of Justice. 

The danger of the Republic will come greatly from 
material prosperity. The period of a nation's wealth 
has uniformly been the period of degeneracy and cor- 
ruption. Temptations will multiply and strengthen 
with opportunity. The purse of the Lord was com- 
mitted to Judas. Luxury is the offspring of prosper- 
ity. Luxury comes from the palaces of the opulent. 
Luxury is clad in the purj^le and true linen of a rich 
civilization, and fares sumptuously every day. Soc- 
rates and Plato both tell us that the decline of the 
state commenced in the Periclean age. Cato realized 
that the conquest of the east would introduce the vices 
of the conquered. The old sage implored his country- 
men to leave behind the pictures and ornaments of 
Asia, and to let the statues of Greece stand where they 
had been placed by the masters. Italy, during the 
Renaissance, was the centre of culture and refinement. 
It was at this time in which Macaulay pictures the k\)- 
pennines covered with rich cultivation up to their very 
summits, the Po wafting the harvests of Lombardy 
to the granaries of Venice and carrying back the silks 
of Bengal and the furs of Siberia to the palaces of 
Milan, the fair, the happy, the glorious Florence, with 



Conscience in Public Life 119 

the halls ringing with the mirth of the Pulci, with the 
cell twinkling with the wonderful lamp of Politian, with 
the statues on which the eye of Michael Angelo glowed 
with the frenzy of a kindred inspiration, with the gar- 
dens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling May 
day song for the dances of the Etrurian virgins. 

While literature and the arts were fairly glowing 
under the splendid sun of Italian culture, and while 
the colors of Eaphael were delighting the eye, and the 
arches of Brunellschi were rising in graceful outlines, 
the liberty of the people was disappearing in the cor- 
ruption which began in the time of Petrarch and ex- 
tended to the days of the Reformation. 

The idea among the ancients that to make profit out 
of oflSce was an unpardonable crime should be magni- 
fied, even in the splendid civilization of this century. 
Conscience, which is integrity, should be made the 
chief of the civic virtues. The want in public station 
is the conscience of Pericles, who never increased his 
inheritance by a single drachma through a long career. 
The want in i:)ublic station is the conscience of the 
old controller of Athens. The accounts, involving mil- 
lions of money, were audited every fourth year, and 
found to be rigidly correct. When the old law-giver 
was dying he demanded a new examination. The 
auditor reviewed his long administration. The ac- 
counts were again declared to be correct, and were 
ordered to be engraven on tablets of marble, while 
the man of conscience went down to the grave in per- 
fect peace. It would be well if some Juvenal or some 
Tacitus would hold up in deathless record the rigor 
of ancient honesty. The Catos in public life would 
then be more careful of their honor, and would weigh 
all the gold they brought from the east, and the modem 



120 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Eegulus would take nothing of the plunder of wealthy- 
Carthage. It might be, too, that some Fabius Maximus 
would upbraid the Seipios in the very senate— not as 
the corrupters of the soldiery— but as the corrupters 
of the people. 

Aristides left a grand national legacy to his fellow- 
citizens by the name of the Just. When the proposi- 
tion to burn the allied fleet was made, he said that 
while this course might be advantageous, it would be 
most unjust. This opinion comes down to us more 
imperishable than the frieze of Phidias and the marble 
of Pentelicus. As the ancients praised the times of 
Saturn, so the allies of Athens, the historian tells us, 
blessed the settlements of Aristides, calhng them the 
happy fortune of Greece. 

There have been those intrusted with power in later 
times with whom patriotism meant the love of country 
and a willingness to employ all the best powers, physi- 
cal, moral and intellectual, in advancing the honor, the 
welfare, and the happiness of the whole people. There 
are those who have believed in that liberality of senti- 
ment, that rectitude of principle, that purity of life— 
remote though the age— manifested by Theocritus in 
his Pastorals and Homer in his Heroics. 

There certainly has been no statesman in English 
history who exerted more influence and directed the 
affairs of his county in more eventful periods than 
William Pitt. He was neither extravagant nor even 
in comfortable circumstances. The sheriff waited at 
the door at the time of a state dinner. There was, 
however, an absolute conviction shared by every Eng- 
lishman that while he was instrumental in conferring 
peerage after peerage, and appointed others to most 
lucrative positions, there was in him incorruptible 



Conscience in Public Life 121 

integrity and unsullied honor. The great commoner 
could look with indifference, and even contempt, on 
coronets and garters. He sleeps in Westminster Ab- 
bey, the mausoleum of Britain's genius and royalty, 
with the younger Pitt and Percival and Palmerston; 
but of all the dust under those gTand old Gothic arches, 
which have witnessed every coronation since the days 
of Edward the Confessor, "scarcely one has left a 
more stainless and none a more splendid name." 

The example of Washington- in retiring from the 
Presidential office, to which he had been called for two 
successive terms, was followed by Jetfersou, notwith- 
standing the solicitation of the legislatures of some of 
the states that he could consent to another election. 
This second example of voluntary self-chastened am- 
bition, by the decided approbation of public opinion, 
says John Quincy Adams, has been held obligatory 
upon their successors, and has become a tacit subsidiary 
constitutional law. Conscience may be manifested in 
witliliolding from office as well as in holding offif^e for 
the public good. The precedent established by the two 
greatest names in our history might well be accepted 
as the law of the laud. Caesar thrice refused the 
crown, but each time more gently than before. Self- 
sacrifice, without imitating Curtius, can sometimes 
raise a man to that grand elevation which will enable 
him to do acts that centuries will admire. 

We are a people great in the conscious possession 
of powers and obligations, on which depend the highest 
issues of humanity. This, too, is a time in which broad 
ideas of ci^il liberty should be intelligently defined and 
more generally secured. The primary relation of the 
citizen to society and the state becomes a distinct 
subject of political action. We have a great compact 



122 Orations and Historical Addresses 

domain. Even Charlemagne and Alfred the Great had 
no such elements of empire. We have the civilization 
of all the centuries comprehended in one century. Tlie 
settlements along the bays and inlets of the Atlantic 
have extended in parallel lines across the continent 
until they have reached the shores of the distant Ore- 
gon and California. The territorial greatness of the 
country has been expressed by the thought that the 
eagles of Rome, when their wings were strongest, never 
flew so far as from Plymouth Rock to the Golden Gate. 
The invention of the electric telegraph bears the cur- 
rents of human thought from country to country and 
kingdom to kingdom, telling the daily story of great 
events. The discovery of the printing press is only 
second in usefulness to the art of printing itself. Hoe 
is as great as Gutenberg. Edison cormnands the ele- 
ments to do his bidding and seems even to penetrate 
into the mysteries of the unknown and the infinite. 

Hereditary wealth and the custom of primogeniture 
have never become ingrafted on our political system. 
The republicanism nurtured in the pure air of yonder 
mountains successfully protested against pi-ivilege and 
the feudal claims of the first-born until the principles 
have become intrenched in a continent. It has been 
demonstrated that a permanently pure democracy may 
exist, in which the whole people may partake in the 
affairs of government and share in its privileges. The 
bullet of the assassin or the stab of the assegai in the 
far-off Zululand may affect the title to a throne or 
determine the line of succession in a monarchy, but 
with us the people themselves are actors and partici- 
pants, and it is their pro\ance alone to legislate, to 
rule, to alter, and they alone are responsible and suffer 
from the calamities of unjust legislation. There is 



Conscience in Public Life 123 

before this people a career of unparalleled grandeur 
or a career of unparalleled shame. There is a grander 
opportunity offered to the citizen than ever enjoyed 
by a Greek under Pericles or a Roman under Caesar. 

Froude, in his sketch of Julius Ca;sar, says that free 
nations cannot govern subject provinces. If they are 
unable or unwiliiug to admit them to share in their 
constitution and laws, then the constitution itself will 
fall to pieces from mere incompetence for its duties. 
Edward Burke declares that Providence has decreed 
vexation to tyranny and poverty to rapine, and that by 
considering any part of our fellow-citizens in a hostile 
light, the whole body of our country becomes less 
dear to us. There is no greater mission for states- 
manship to-day than to complete the work of pacifica- 
tion and reconciliation, in order that the nation may 
move forward as with the majesty of a new life. 

There is a grander theatre of action for the young 
men of to-day than was ever offered in Nemean or 
Olympic games, or than has ever been presented in all 
the ages and in all the centuries. Millions of eyes are 
turned upon them, and greater acclaims than ever 
greeted Grecian hero await the faithful discharge of 
duty. The country invites educated young men to the 
high calling of advancing the public welfare— not nec- 
essarily through statesmanship and diplomacy, not nec- 
essarily in cabinet or congress, but by employing their 
powers in elevating the public conscience to a just con- 
ception of duty. The want of experience and of years 
will not be accepted as an excuse for inaction and in- 
difference. The apostle wrote to young men because 
they were strong. In youth John Milton's thoughts 
were turned toward the composition of an epic which 



124 Orations and Historical Addresses 

would not let his name die. Montesquieu, at the age 
of twenty, began the preparation of the Spirit of the 
Law. The finest passages in Racine were suggested 
when a mere pujDil in the woods of the Port Royal. 
Descartes was called the philosopher in' early boy- 
hood. The brush of Michael Angelo was inspired long 
before the matchless beauties of the Transfiguration 
and the Last Judgment. Handel in his youth, against 
the wishes of friends, left civil law and went to the 
closet, whence went forth melodies like the wings of 
the morning. Alexander the Great wept at thirty- 
three because there were no other worlds to conquer. 
Leonidas the brave had been carried as a babe in his 
mother's aims only twenty-one years before the day 
at Thermopylfe. Napoleon at twenty-six was com- 
• mander-in-chief of the armies of Italy, and even then 
in the horizon were seen the rays of the sun of Auster- 
litz. 

The high duty of the young men, not of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia alone, but of the young men of 
America, is to pursue that which is right rather than 
that which is expedient; to amplify the sense of justice 
in private and public relations ; to intelligently exercise 
political rights, not only as a privilege but as a duty; 
to develop tlie spirit of union and fraternity among 
all classes and all sections and to magnify country as 
worthy the noblest zeal and best affection. Self must 
not always be considered. "When I heard the thunder 
of Wellington's artillery at Waterloo," said the Bour- 
bon, "I forgot Chateaubriand and thought only of 
France. ' ' 

The voices that are calling should not be unheard. 
The hands that are beckoning should not be unheeded. 



Conscience in Public Life 125 

It is alone worth the effort of a lifetime to have for 
an epitaph, not that of young Keats, whose name was 
writ in watei", but that of another of whom it was said 
it were easier to turn the sun from his course than 
Fabrieius from the path of honor. 



GENERAL GRANT 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

When the first consul returned from Italy he was 
received in public triumph by the Directory. The 
standard of the army, inscribed with all his victories, 
was presented to him amid all the beauty and grace 
and manliness of the republican period. The orator — 
the most accomplished diplomat of his day— said that 
every Frenchman must feel himself elevated by the 
presence of the hero of his country. Napoleon repre- 
sented the idea of aggressive war, and was received 
because he had made the images of history resplendent 
with martial glory. \Mien the Duke of Wellington 
appeared in person, with well earned decorations, to 
receive the thanks of the house of commons, the walls 
of St. Stephen rang again and again with the acclaims 
of the gathered representatives of the British empire. 
The Iron Duke touched the heart of every Englishman, 
because he had overthrown the man whose folded arms 
had become the anxiety of thrones, and at whose word 
boundaries oscillated and diadems were distributed. 

Ideas thus become kings. Every battlefield, above 
the roar of cannon and the crash of musketry, has a 
flag which is the sjanbol of an idea. History will judge 
the cause. Nations may be great aside from war, but 
war is sometimes the salvation of a people. 

There must be a supreme tribunal among nations 

Response to the Toast "Our Guest" at the Banquet given 
to General Grant by the Citizens of Cincinnati, at the Grand 
Hotel. February 12, 1880. 

[126] 



General Grant 127 

and peojiles to detennine even the right of existence. 
The contest through wliich this nation passed exalted 
the very nature of war from a struggle of arms into a 
great contest for the supremacy of an idea. That 
idea was the right of the nation to live. It was heard 
in the steady footfall of a million of men marching 
together. It found expression in the solemn war chant 
of advancing regiments. It was seen in the blazing 
camp fii-es of a hundred thousand men. It was re- 
flected from the gleaming bayonets which flashed in 
parallel lines to the Gulf. It thundered forth from 
every gun from the Mississippi to the sea. It animated 
the captive and the prisoner who sutTered in the slow 
agony of prison martyrdom, and could only look to 
tlie stars for help. It prompted angels of mercy —with 
human form— to go into every camp and hospital to 
relieve the faint and sick and dying. It sent the pray- 
ers of the good men and women in Isi'ael heavenward, 
like sweetest exhalations, for benedictions on the cause. 
The guest whom we honor to-night was identified 
with the greatest crisis of the age. He represents 
not aggressive war, nor the overthrow of a djmasty, 
but the better idea that the purity of the Re- 
public shall be maintained. This idea, which in- 
volves country and home and family and society, was 
successful on the field of battle, and his name will go 
on ringing through the generations. This war being 
sanctified by a national purpose became the people's 
war. The cause for which they fought was their cause. 
The reward of victory was their reward; the effort 
to obtain it was their effort. The people realized the 
proud consciousness that this country was their name, 
their glory, their sign among the peoples of the eaith. 
That sentiment welcomes death and disease, if neces- 



128 Orations and Historical Addresses 

sary, and, wlien inscribed on the banners of an army, is 
stronger than its bayonets. At the call to arms the 
sledge slept noiseless on the anvil, the shuttle forgot 
its cunning, the plane lay idle on the work-bench and 
the plow rested in the half-started furrow. When the 
war closed there was an army in the field of more than 
a half million of men. They had been constant in 
labor, devoted in patriotism, ardent in action, generous 
in victory and unfaltering in death. When the flag 
floated in triumph the guns were returned to the 
arsenal, the bayonets replaced in the scabbard, the 
dust gathered on the drums that had so lately beaten 
the long roll, while the grandest army that ever vindi- 
cated national integrity returned to the pursuits of 
peace. Nearly all great civil revolutions have ended 
in a dictatorship. An iron will builds up a despotism 
on the ruins of a war. The late civil war ended in 
the dictatorship of the people. They directed public 
affairs. AVe have earned in blood the right of self- 
government. 

The destruction of human servitude was an accident 
—not a puipose of the war. The system antagonized 
the very idea of liberty itself. It could not live in this 
century and it perished in.the shock of battle. Human 
slavery dishonored the nation, and the resurrection of 
bondage would be the resurrection of shame and dis- 
honor to America. Truth is stalwart. Right is radical. 
The contest between justice and oppression will never 
end. Injustice brings discontent, and discontent is 
rebellion. England is reaping her injustice in the dis- 
content of Ii-eland. Who can tell but that the flag fell 
at Sumter for the reason that when it should be lifted 
again it would raise up all men with it? 

The breaking of the fetters throws a glow of human 



General Grcmt 129 

ity over the whole struggle. It awakens sympathy in 
every heart that beats to be free. Humanity has no 
horizon. It will always be found that true religion con- 
sists in the uplifting of the lowly. 

History teaches nothing if it does not teach that 
every war is increased or lessened by its enduring 
results— not alone by the magnitude of the struggle. 
Tamerlane standing at the gates of Damascus with his 
battle-axe on liis shoulder, while his legions filed out 
to new victories and fresh carnage, is less important 
than John Hampden, who, for a few shillings of ship 
money, perished on the field of Chalgrove. The un- 
rivalled welcome extended by the other nations to the 
leader of our armies was greatly magnified, and will 
be greatly magnified in history, by the fact that his 
prudence and his judgment and his firmness of pur- 
pose directed the great forces which destroyed the 
institution of slavery. 

It is, perhaps, too soon to judge critically of the move- 
ments of our armies and award proper credit to those 
who assisted in the great contest. There are preju- 
dices to be overcome. We are too near the prominent 
actors and too near the influences which make partial 
judgments and partial history. It is not too soon, 
however, to say that General Grant from the beginning 
had a proper conception of the magnitude of the war 
and of the policy that should prevail. He declared it 
necessary "to hammer continuously against the armed 
forces of the enemy and his resources until, by mere 
attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing 
left to him but an equal submission with the loyal 
section of our common country, to the constitution and 
laws of the land." Attrition determined the war. A 
battle may be won by an accident, but no great war was 

9 



130 Orations and Historical Addresses 

ever conducted to a successful issue without the exer- 
cise of the greatest qualities of the mind, of judgment, 
of prudence, of calculation, of firmness of purpose. 
When courage and fortitude and determination were 
so nearly balanced as in the late war it follows that 
the armies should be directed by the great principle of 
acting by masses. 

It can truthfully be said that the moral qualities 
of the soldier were not unequal— that Northern valor 
and Southern valor meant American valor, with only 
a geographical division. The science of war consists 
in massing units against fractions— of divisions against 
brigades, of brigades against regiments, of regiments 
against companies. It protests against the movement 
of men by double, exterior or multiplied lines. It 
prefers the single or interior line. It contends that 
the march should be by the segment and not by the cir- 
cumference of the circle. It is sufficient to say that 
this principle carried into effect directed more than 
one million men to victory, and receiving the sword of 
Pemberton in the Valley of the Mississippi, at last 
received the sword of Lee at Appomattox, where 
perished the gallant army of Northern Virginia, whose 
manhood, however mistaken the cause, called forth 
such Herculean deeds of valor. There appears, too, 
in the man of Shiloh and the AYilderness the magnanim- 
ity which has always characterized the true soldier. 
There is something in his character which, like that 
of Sir Philip Sidney, gave a cup of cold water to the 
dying soldier. 

When the terms of surrender by the Army of North- 
ern Virginia — an army which defied death even in 
the graveyard— had been signed. General Lee remarked 
that many of the cavalry and artillery horses belonged 



General Grcmt 131 

to the men, who had given all to the cause, hut of 
course it was too late to speak of that now. General 
Grant instantly replied: "I will instruct my paroling 
officers that all the enlisted men of your cavalry and 
artillery who own horses shall I'etain them, as the 
officers do theirs. They will need them for their spring 
plowing and other farm work." General Lee replied 
with visible emotion: "There is nothing that you 
could have done to accomplish more good, either for 
them or the government." He observed the cartel 
when politicians meddled, with the faith of a Chevalier 
Bayard. He would then supplant the methods of war 
by the methods of peace. He would on the very field 
of battle turn the sword into the plowshare and the 
spear into the pruning hook. He would make the 
deserted battlefields wave with golden harvest. He 
would follow the track of the avenging cannon wheel 
with the furrow of rich cultivation. He would make 
the air, once shrieking with shell and shot, vocal with 
the song of a merry husbandry. He would concede 
that something depends upon the circumstances of 
birth and education, and would rise to that patriotism 
which believes that men may love their country without 
intolerance and may fight her battles without revenge. 
Some patriotic hand has painted an American flag 
in all its colors on one of the Corinthian columns of 
the old temples at Baalbec. The approach to the Tem- 
ple of the Sun is made through a long subterranean 
chamber. A party of young Americans, on horseback, 
some time ago, on emerging from the chamber, saw 
the flag directly before them for the first time in a 
foreign land. In a moment, and without a word, every 
head was uncovered in honor of that country, which, 
if its flag does not extend so far, the blessings of its 



132 Orations and Historical Addresses 

civilization and good government extend even further. 
What must have been the emotions of him, who, having 
seen this flag in the heat and dust of battle, while thou- 
sands fought and millions prayed for its success, should 
again see it on the waters of every ocean, and received 
with salvos of artillery in almost every part of the 
habitable globe. What must have been the emotions 
of him as he contemplated in far off lands that his 
energy and his patriotism contributed so much to give 
his country the position which is now assigned to 
America by common consent in the commonwealth of 
nations, and which he has seen accorded by every 
prince and potentate in Christendom ! The method of 
embalming the human body is among the lost arts. 
Science has not, even to this day, discovered how the 
Egyptians preserved their illustrious dead for thou- 
sands of years. It has been seen, however, in this gen- 
eration, how a name may be embalmed for the ages, 
and if the memory of Lincoln shall live in the gratitude 
of the lowly whom he lifted up, in the affection of the 
bondman whose back he saved from the lash, in the 
remembrance of the oppressed whose wrongs he made 
his own, in the tears of wives and mothers and children 
whom he kept from the auction block, then the name 
of Grant will live so long as the Republic itself shall 
stand, or the page of the historian tell the story of 
heroic valor and self consecration to country. 

The people of the city of Cincinnati, the metropolis 
of the state which gave you birth, cheerfully pay 
tribute to the soldier and patriot, who never disobeyed 
the call of duty, even in the time of greatest peril, and 
join with the whole country in the fervent wish that 
you may long be permitted to enjoy the approbation of 



General Grant 133 

your fellow-citizeus, aud the liberties which you have 
so faithfully helped to secure. 

REPLY OF GENERAL GRANT. 

Amid calls of his name and hearty cheering General 
Grant rose and said: 

Gentlemen of Cincinnati: 

Like all of you, I have listened to every word— all 
the eloquent words— which have just been uttered. 
And I have not heard one, except so far as they apply 
to myself individually, that I do not subscribe to and 
indorse in the fullest sense. (A voice: "Good boy.") 
If the eloquent speaker and myself have ever differed 
in politics, I don't know why it has been, except that 
we have voted opposite tickets. (Laughter.) Our 
views certainly have coincided exactly. (Cheers.) 

Gentlemen, I thank you for listening to the words 
you have heard so eloquently spoken by the last gen- 
tleman, and for the greeting which you give me here. 
(Cheers.) 



THE MIAMI VALLEY 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Citizens 
of the Miami Valley: 

I am honored to-day by this invitation to address 
the people of the Miami Valley. Born almost under 
the shadow of the Big Hill where Colonel Eobert Elliott 
was waylaid and killed by the Indians in 1794, on his 
way from Fort Washington to Fort Hamilton, my 
thoughts were early directed to the struggles with the 
Indians and the efforts and hardships of the pioneers 
in settling and developing the country. In school- 
days I had read with peculiar interest of the desperate 
encounter of Jacob Wetzel with the giant Indian on 
the road to Storrs and Delhi; of the attack on Dunlap's 
Station, at Colerain; of the assault made on White's 
Station at the third crossing of Mill Creek near Car- 
thage, on the old Hamilton Road; of the disastrous 
campaign of Harmar and Arthur St. Clair and the 
victory of Anthony Wayne at the Fallen Timbers. 

There are, too, recollections and sympathies of a 
more tender nature which impelled me to come. My 
father more than fifty years ago, after leaving Nassau 
Hall and the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 
New York, came to the Miami Valley. For forty years 
he continued in the practice of his profession. He now 
sleeps in the village church yard at Springdale, on the 
very ground where stood the pioneer church of 1796, 
and left behind him a memory which is cherished in the 

Delivered before the People of the Miami Vallev, at Ham- 
ilton, Ohio, July 4, 1881. 

[134] 



The Miami Valley 135 

whole community as tliat of a good physician, a kind 
father, and an estimable friend and fellow citizen. His 
attachment for this valley was sincere and devoted, 
and to-day his son, in the presence of the friends of his 
father and with every view about him associated with 
some recollection of boyhood, feels like adopting for 
the people of the Miami Valley the language of Ruth : 
"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from fol- 
lowing after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go; 
and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall 
be my people, and thy God, my God ; where thou diest, 
will I die; and there will I be buried. The Lord do 
so to me and more also if aught but death part thee 
and me." 

In a quiet cemetery at North Bend, shaded by old 
forest trees, there is a jDlain tablet with the following 
inscription : ' ' Here rest the remains of John Cleves 
Symmes, who, at the foot of these hills, made the first 
settlement between the Miami rivers. Born on Long 
Island, State of New York, July 21st., A. D. 1742. Died 
at Cincinnati, February 26th, A. D. 1814." 

This purchase— known as the Symmes' purchase — 
marks a most important event in the history of the 
Miami country. It affects every title to real estate and 
concerns every home in the valley. It is interesting 
to trace the beginning of any people or any civilization. 
When society is in a formative state— when land titles 
are to be fixed and property made secure from vexa- 
tious litigation— when an extended frontier must be 
protected and the territory must be divided— when a 
scattered population must be governed and local juris- 
dictions must be established— when jjublic sentiment is 
to be moulded and directed- the greatest care and best 
judgment should be exercised. The pioneers of this 



136 Orations and Historical Addresses 

valley were compelled to act largely without precedent, 
and to meet contingencies which could not well be 
anticipated. Their praise is written in the unexampled 
prosperity of this whole valley, and in the sacredness 
which everywhere invests life and character and prop- 
erty. 

John Cleves Symmes was a soldier in the Army of 
the Kevolution and chief justice of the state of New 
Jersey. He saw with the eye of prophecy that there 
was a magnificent future for the Miami country. There 
were many difficulties to overcome and much opposition 
was encountered. The land acquired as a result of 
the war for independence awakened jealousy among 
the states by reason of the claims which were asserted 
for the territory. Appeals were made to the patriotism 
of the states for the good of a common country. Vir- 
ginia ceded her claim to all the territory northwest 
of Ohio, and Connecticut relinquished her right, ex- 
cepting as to that district known as the Connecticut 
Reserve. 

It then devolved upon congress to dispose of this 
ceded territory. John Cleves Symmes, for himself 
and his associates, on the twenty-ninth day of August, 
1787, submitted a proposition to congress to purchase 
all the lands lying between the Miami rivers, south 
of a certain line, with the understanding that one town- 
ship should be reserved for the pur])oses of an insti- 
tution of learning. The proposition was referred to 
the board of treasury, and some eighty-two thousand 
dollars were paid into the treasury. 

In the Notes on the Northwestern Territory, from 
which many of the facts concerning the purchase are 
obtained, it is stated that the ordinance for the sale 
of the public lands, under which the Miami contract 



The Miami Valley 137 

was made, estimated their value at one dollar per acre ; 
but as the lands were offered in large tracts, there was 
a provision that one-third of that sum should be de- 
ducted from the price on account of bad land and land 
covered with water. The price really paid was two- 
thirds of a dollar per acre, or five shillings in Penn- 
sylvania currency. This was payable in certificates of 
debts due from the United States. The interest due 
on the certificates was not to be received in pajonent; 
but for such amounts new certificates denominated 
"Indents" were issued at the treasury department. 
The purchaser was at liberty to pay one-seventh part 
of the consideration in militaiy land warrants, issued 
by the United States to the officers and soldiers of the 
Eevolutionary War. The payments were to be made 
in six equal semi-annual installments, and on the pay- 
ment of each installment the purchaser was entitled to 
receive a patent for a proportionate part of the land. 
This was the original consideration paid for these 
broad Miami bottoms, now rustling with growing corn 
and golden with expectant harvests. 

There was then much discussion concerning the dis- 
position of the public domain. The people looked with 
jealousy upon the attempt to concentrate the lands 
into the hands of the few, just as in later times the 
encroachments of gigantic coii^orations ai'e regarded 
with distrust. Judge SjTnmes, without formally exe- 
cuting the necessary instruments to complete the pur- 
chase, left for the western country. It was thought 
by some that the object was to take immediate pos- 
session without further fulfilling the contract, and a 
resolution was even offered in congress ordering Col- 
onel Harmar, who was then stationed at Pittsburgh 
with a regiment of troops, to interfere in the matter. 



138 Orations and Historical Addresses 

On the fifteenth of October, 1788, the contract was 
modified, by which the quantity of land was reduced 
to one million of acres, and the southern boundary 
instead of running from one Miami river to the other, 
was to terminate at a point in the Ohio river, twenty 
miles above the mouth of the Big Miami river, thence 
northwardly with the general course of the Big Miami 
for quantity. 

Judge Symmes by agreement with his associates— 
Jonathan Dayton and Elias Boudinot— set apart for 
his own private benefit the entire township lying lowest 
down in the point formed by the Ohio and Big Miami 
rivers, together with three fractional townships lying 
west and south between it and these two rivers, esti- 
mated to contain forty thousand acres. This was in- 
tended as compensation for personal services in at- 
tention to the purchase and the sales of land. 

The first object was to encourage settlements. Ac- 
cordingly an inducement was offered in the way of a 
proposition to immediate purchasers that one dollar 
for every acre would be charged after the first day 
of May next following, instead of sixty-six cents, 
and that the jarice would be increased from 
time to time as the settlement might progress. 
The excess beyond the congressional price of sixty-six 
cents was to be deposited with a register and expended 
in opening roads and in constructing bridges, and in 
otherwise developing the country. History is silent 
as to the appointment of any register, and the frontiers- 
men were left to improve their own roads, construct 
their own bridges, and defend their own homes from 
the attacks of the hostile Indians. It was further 
stipulated that every person entering land for location 
should, within two years, place himself or some other 



The Miami Valley 139 

person on the land, or on the nearest station of defense, 
and commence au improvement, if it could be done with 
safety. The improvement thus commenced should con- 
tinue for seven years, unless molested by the Indians. 
In the event of a failure to comply with these terms, 
there was a penalty of forfeiture of one-sixth part of 
each tract, which the register was authorized to lay off 
at the northeast comer in a regular square, and grant 
to any volunteer settler who would perform the orig- 
inal temis. 

It was perhaps necessary that some provisions of 
this character should have been adopted in order that 
settlements should be encouraged, but the exaction of 
a penalty of forfeiture involved protracted difficulties 
and caused endless litigation. 

The earlier courts, in the spirit of equity, hesitated 
to applj' the rigid rules of legal principles in regard 
to forfeitures ; otherwise much wrong would have been 
done. Judge Burnet says that it was the better opin- 
ion of his day that but for a relaxation of the sevei'e 
rules of law, there was not a forfeiture title in the 
Miami purchase which could have been maintained. 
The good common sense that prevailed in the early 
days alone secured the innocent purchasers of real 
estate in the Symmes' tract from dispossession and 
ejectment. The statute of limitation has accomplished 
a good work in that direction. 

The third entire range of townships was conveyed 
to General Dayton in trust for the persons who held 
military warrants and wished to turn in these warrants 
in pajTnent of land. It became known as the Military 
Eange, and will explain that which has often been the 
subject of inquiry among the people of the valley. 

The original plan of survey adopted for the Miami 



140 Orations and Historical Addresses 

purcbase was very defective. Some years aftei-wards 
Judge Symmes ordered the meridian line, which formed 
the east boundary of the section on which Cincinnati 
stands — now foot of Broadway street— to be carefully 
remeasured and new stakes to be set up at the end of 
each mile. This was declared the standard line, and 
purchasers and others were directed to run lines east 
and west from the new stakes, and to establish their 
corners at the points of intersection on the meridian. 
The effect of this, if carried out strictly, would have 
been to change every original corner in the purchase. 
Indeed, in some instances, the sui"veys were made un- 
der direction of the occupants themselves, so that many 
of the section lines are now irregular in distance, and 
more than one mile apart. The lines along the old 
road from one Miami to the other through Springdale 
resemble the worm fences of generations ago. They 
extend in acute angles almost from one river to the 
other. 

The supreme court of Ohio has held that as the 
original survey had been made under the act of con- 
gress, and accepted at the treasury department, the 
old corners should stand. The ancient landmarks, 
which the fathers had set— as in the Mosaic law- 
should not be removed. There was, too, another dif- 
ficulty wliich embarrassed the original purchaser. The 
eastern boundary of the purchase commenced in the 
Ohio river at a point twenty miles above the mouth of 
the Big Miami, which proved to be within the limits 
of Cincinnati, and ran from thence north, parallel with 
the general course of the Big Miami for quantity. The 
principal part of the land between that line and the 
Little Miami had been sold. 



The Miami Valley 141 

In order to remedy this defect, congress, in 1792, 
altered the original contracts so that the line should 
extend from one Miami to the other, and be bounded 
on the south by the Ohio, on the east and west by the 
Little and Great Miami rivers, and on the north by a 
parallel of latitude so as to include the quantity. In 
the patent made in pursuance of the act of May, 1792, 
the President reserved a tract of fifteen acres, includ- 
ing Fort Washington, for the accommodation of the 
garrison. There was also a reservation of a tract of 
land at or near the mouth of the Big Miami equal to 
one mile square ; but this afterwards reverted to Judge 
Symmes and his associates. 

The President was authorized by this legislation to 
grant a patent for as much of the land contained in 
the contract with John Cleves Symmes as could then 
be paid for at the treasury department. 

In 1794, it was ascertained on settlement with the 
treasury department that Judge Symmes had paid for 
two hundred and forty-eight thousand, five hundred 
and forty acres, and for this quantity he obtained a 
patent. 

The right to the grant of a college township had 
been lost by reducing the purchase to one million of 
acres by the contract of 1788; yet that township and 
certain reserved sections were included in the same 
patent, so that the boundaries described in it con- 
tained three hundred and eleven thousand, six hundred 
and eighty-two acres of land. There was no other evi- 
dence of title prior to that time than the original war- 
rant given at the time of the purchase, but new deeds 
were now executed in regular form. 

This then was the Miami Purchase— at that time an 
unknown wilderness, now almost an empire of itself, 



142 Orations and Historical Addresses 

with nearly a half million of inhabitants, revering reli- 
gion, encouraging education, obeying the law; with 
cities and towns and villages and homes ; with churches 
and academies and school houses; with railways and 
canals and turnpikes and telegraphs and telephones; 
with music halls and libraries and parks and pleasure 
resorts; with forests and woodlands and orchards and 
grain fields and meadows ; with every comfort and lux- 
ury of the most advanced civilization. 

It may be interesting to know the character of the 
Miami countiy and how it appeared before it began to 
bud and blossom as the rose, and before the melody of 
the reaping machine mingled with the melody of the 
birds. 

When the original contract had been entered into 
for the Miami Purchase, John Cleves Symmes issued 
an address concerning the country. It is addressed 
"to the respectable public," and dated, Trenton, New 
Jersey, the twenty-sixth day of November, 1787. The 
address says: "The subscriber begs leave to add, for 
the information of those who are unacquainted with the 
country, that from his own view of this land, bordering 
on the river Ohio, and the unanimous report of all 
those who have travelled over the tract in almost every 
dii-ection, it is supposed to be equal to any part of the 
federal territory in point of quality of soil and excel- 
lence of climate, it lying in the latitude of about thirty- 
eight degrees north, where the winters are moderate 
and no extreme heat in summer. Its situation is such 
as to command the navigation of several fine rivers, 
as may be seen by the maps of that country; boats are 
frequently passing by this land as they ply up and 
down the Ohio. There are no mountains in the tract, 
and, excepting a few hills, the country is generally 



The Miami Valley 143 

level and free from stone on the surface of the earth ; 
hut there are plenty of stone quarries for building. 
It is said to be well watered with springs and rivulets 
and several fine mill streams falling from the chviding 
ridge into the two Mianiis, which lie about thirty miles 
apart, and are both supposed to be navigable higher up 
in the country than the northern extent of this pur- 
chase, so that the interior farms will have navigation 
in the boating season, within fifteen or eighteen miles 
at farthest. Salt in any quantity may be had by water 
within a moderate distance at the salt works on the 
banks of the Licking river, which empties itself from 
the Kentucky side into the Ohio between the two Miami 
rivers. Provisions for the first emigrants may be had 
very cheap and good by water from Pittsburg, Red- 
stone and Wheeling settlements, or from the district 
of Kentucky, which lies opposite to this purchase on 
the southeast side of the Ohio. * * * 

"For the quantity, a large jiroportion of the lands 
in the Miami purchase are suj^posed to be of first qual- 
ity, and the whole equally good, compared generally 
with those of Kentucky. The titles to the Miami lands 
will be clear and certain, and no possible doubt can 
arise. 

"The honorable secretary of war, Samuel Knox, 
having assured the subscriber of his friendly disposi- 
tion to support the settlers against the Indians, by 
replacing a garrison of federal troops in the fort, 
which is still remaining on the land at the mouth of 
the Great Miami, must greatly facilitate the settle- 
ment, and in some measure render safety to the first 
adventurers. 

"A system of good government for that country is 



144 Orations and Historical Addresses, 

already formed by the honorable, the congress, and the 
principal oflSeers of the government are already ap- 
pointed. His Excellency, Governor St. Clair, and the 
honorable judges of the supreme court go out early 
next spring, and will carry with them wholesome laws 
and the wisest regulations for promoting emigration to 
that country, protecting and rendering happy all those 
who may become peaceable settlers therein." * * * 
One of the settlers, who was in the valley as early 
as 1791, says: "The winter of 1791-2 was followed by 
an early and delightful spring; indeed, I have often 
thought that our first western winters were much 
milder, our springs earlier, and our autumns longer 
than they now are. On the last of February some of 
the trees were putting forth their foliage; in March 
the red bud, the hawthorn and dogwood, in full bloom, 
checkered liills, displaying their beautiful colors of 
rose and lily, and in Aj^ril the ground was covered with 
May apples, blood root, ginseng, violets and a great 
variety of herbs and flowers. Flocks of paroquets 
were seen, decked in their rich plumage of green and 
gold. Birds of various species and of every hue were 
flitting from tree to tree, and the beautiful red bird 
and the untaught songster of the west made the woods 
vocal with their melody. Now might be heard the 
plaintive wail of the dove, and now the rumbling drum 
of the partridge or the loud gobble of the turkey. Here 
might be seen the clumsy bear, doggedly moving off, 
or urged by pursuit into a laboring gallop, retreating 
to his citadel in the top of some lofty tree, or ap- 
proached suddenly, raising himself erect in attitude of 
defense, facing his enemy and waiting his approach; 
there the timid deer, watchfully resting or cautiously 
feeding, or aroused from his thicket, gracefully bound- 



The Miami Valley 145 

ing off ; then stopping, erecting his stately head and for 
a moment gazing around, or snuffing the air to ascer- 
tain his enemy, instantly springing otf, clearing logs 
and bushes at a bound, and soon distancing his pursuer. 
It seemed an earthly paradise, and but for an appre- 
hension of the wily copperhead, who lay silently coiled 
among the leaves or beneath the plants, waiting to 
strike his victim; the horned rattlesnake, who, more 
chivalrous, however, with head erect amidst its ample 
folds, prepared to dart upon his foe, generously, with 
the loud noise of his rattle, apprised him of danger; 
and the still more fearful and insidious savage, who, 
crawling upon the ground or noiselessly approaching 
behind trees and thickets, sped the deadly shaft or 
fatal bullet, you might have fancied you were in the 
confines of Eden or the borders of Elysimn. " 

The i^eaceful valley of to-day has witnessed not less 
than five distinct armies within her borders with all 
the pomp and circumstance of war— that of General 
Harmar on his way to chastise the Indians of the 
Miami villages in October, 1791; that of General 
Arthur St. Clair, on his march to defeat the Indians 
of the northwest, in October, 1791; that of General 
Anthony Wayne, on his advance to the victory of the 
Fallen Timbers, in August, 1791 ; that of General John 
H. Morgan, of the Confederate Army, on his retreat 
to the Ohio river in July, 1863, and that of General 
Hobson, of the Federal Army, on the succeeding day, 
in pursuit of the retreating forces. 

Arthur St. Clair, an officer in the old French war, 
in the continental army during the revolution, and 
president of the continental congress, was, in 1798, ap- 
pointed governor of the northwestern territory. In 
January, 1790, he arrived at Fort Washington, and on 

10 



146 Orations and Historical Addresses 

the fourth day of ]\Iarcb, 1791, was appointed major 
general iu the armies of the United States and in- 
vested with the chief command of the troops to be 
employed against the hostile Indians. The disastrous 
results of Harmar's expedition had emboldened the 
Indians and made them aggressive. 

The object of St. Clair's campaign was to establish 
a military post at the Miami Village, at the junction 
of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers, at what is 
now Fort WajTie, with intermediate posts of communi- 
cation between it and Fort Washington, in order that 
the Indians might be intimidated and fui'ther hostili- 
ties prevented. 

Active preparations were commenced at once. In 
a narrative of the manner in which the campaign 
against the Indians in the year one thousand seven 
hundred and ninety-one was conducted under the com- 
mand of Major General St. Clair, published in 1812, 
in his own vindication, the writer says: "In short, 
almost every art was going forward, and Fort Wash- 
ington had as much the appearance of a large manu- 
factory in the inside as it had of a military post on the 
outside, * * * aQ(j the country near Fort Wash- 
ington being entirely eaten out on the seventh day of 
August, 1791, all the troops, except the artitieers and 
a small garrison for the fort moved to Ludlow Station 
about six miles distant." 

Colonel William Darke— for whom Darke county 
was named— led the advance from Ludlow Station 
to the Great Miami river. A fort was laid out to cover 
the passage of the river. This work was intended not 
only as a base for supplies, but also as a permanent 
link in the communication between Fort Washington 
and the stations to be established in the northwest. 



The Miami Valley 147 

General St. Clair was occasional!}' at the eaniii himself 
to direct the construction of the fort, but remained 
principally at Fort Washington to hasten the prepara- 
tions for the campaign. On the third day of Septem- 
ber following, the fort was so far completed as to re- 
ceive a garrison, and two pieces of artillery having 
been placed in it, they were fired, and the stockade 
was named Fort Hamilton, in honor of the secretary of 
the treasury. 

On the first and second days of October, 1791, the 
whole force, consisting of two thousand three hundred 
non-commissioned officers and privates fit for duty, was 
mustered and reviewed by General St. Clair and in- 
spected by Colonel Mentgetz, the inspector of the army. 

The general then gave directions as to the manner in 
which the army was to encamp, and to form in order 
of battle in various circumstances, and left General 
Butler to carry the orders into effect. He then re- 
turned to Fort Washington to organize the militia, 
"with whom a number of officers out of all proportion 
to the privates, had come forward"— a possible char- 
acteristic of the militia of the present day. 

On the fourth day of October, 1791, the army under 
command of General Richard Butler— for whom Butler 
county was named— was put in motion and commenced 
the march into the wilderness. The army forded the 
Great Miami at the shallow water near where the In- 
dianapolis railroad bridge crosses the river. It seems 
strange to relate, but before the army left Fort Ham- 
ilton, the commanding officer was compelled to issue 
an order prohibiting the women who followed the camp 
from proceeding with the army, excepting two or three 
to each company. The order was disregarded, and 
many of the women climbed upon the artillery car- 



148 Orations and Historical Addresses 

riages in fording the river, and even rode astride 
the cannon. Atwater, in his history of Ohio, says that 
at St. Clair's defeat there were not less than two hun- 
dred women in the army at the commencement of the 
action, and that fifty-six were actually killed in the 
engagement. 

The army advanced about one and a half miles on 
the first day to Two-Mile creek; on the second day 
about two miles further to Four-Mile creek and en- 
camped on the site of the old mill on the Eaton road. 
On the third day the army marched to Seven-Mile 
creek and encamped in the bottom on the east side of 
the ci-eek. The names given to the creeks corresponded 
with the distances measui'ed from Fort Hamilton, and 
their names are retained to this day. The army con- 
tinued its march to the north and passed near where 
the eastern line of Milford township in Butler county 
is now located. The slow progress was intended foi 
the accommodation of General St. Clair, who arrived 
from Camp Washington on the sixth day of October 
and took command. 

It is unnecessary to follow this army on its onward 
march to Fort Greenville and beyond to final defeat 
on the fourth day of November, 1791. The disaster 
filled the whole country with sorrow, and much criticism 
was provoked by the result of the campaign. Among 
the slain was the gallant General Butler. General St. 
Clair, however, was honorably acquitted of all blame 
by the committee of congress appointed to inquire 
into the causes of the failure of the expedition. The 
reason, perhaps, is as well explained by the fact that 
he had been indisposed for some days past with what 
at times appeared to be "a bilious colic, sometimes 
a rheumatic asthma, and at other times symptoms of 



The Miami Valleij 149 

the gout." He continued to exercise the duties per- 
taining to the ofiSce of governor of the territory from 
1787 to 1802, inclusive, and to the last, says Marshall, 
in his life of Washington, he retained the undiminished 
esteem and good opinion of President Washington. 

The feeling occasioned by the disaster near Fort 
Greenville was of such a character that General St. 
Clair resigned his commission in the army. He was 
succeeded by Anthony Wajme who had gained the name 
of "Mad Anthony" because of his desperate and suc- 
cessful attack on Stony Point, which also won for him 
a gold medal from congress. He went down the Ohio 
from Pittsburg about twenty miles and was there 
joined by Lieutenant William Henry Harrison, who 
afterwards defeated Tecumseh at Tippecanoe, and be- 
came President of the United States. He first en- 
camped at "Hobson's Choice," between Fort Wash- 
ington and Mill creek, and afterwards advanced to 
Ludlow's Station, from which place on the seventh 
day of October, 1793, with an army of twenty-three 
hundred men, he marched to Fort Hamilton, through 
where the village of Springdale now stands, and then 
on to the site of the present town of Greenville. He 
took a different line of march from St. Clair, and 
crossed the Miami some distance above the Four-Mile 
creek, and then encamped near the Five-Mile spring, 
which may be seen on the east side of the road to 
Eaton. A party of mounted riflemen detailed to pro- 
tect his supplies was attacked at Fort St. Clair, about 
one mile south of Eaton, and several were killed and 
all the horses taken off. Joel Collins, whose remains 
were followed by the students of Miami University to 
the Oxford Cemetery, on the seventeenth day of Novem- 
ber, 1860, participated in that action. On the twentieth 



150 Orations and Historical Addresses 

day of August 1794, at the battle of the "Fallen Tim- 
bers," near the Maumee rapids, he defeated the enemy 
and marched his army almost under the British guns 
at Fort Miami. Wayne afterwards retired with his 
army to Fort Defiance, while the defeated and dis- 
heartened Indians retreated to the borders of the Mau- 
mee Bay. After building a strong fortification, which 
they called Fort Wayne, and garrisoning it with in- 
fantry and artillery, the remainder of the troops 
marched to Fort Washington to be discharged from the 
service, or to Fort Greenville, where headquarters were 
established for the winter. Many of the soldieris who 
sei'ved in WajTie's campaign located at Fort Hamilton. 

In the summer following the Indians came for peace, 
and on the third day of August, 1795, with nearly eleven 
hundred chiefs and sachems present, representing 
twelve powerful tribes, a definite and satisfactory 
treaty was signed and the pacification of the Indians 
of the northwest made complete. The frontier mili- 
tary posts were soon abandoned by the British troops 
by a special treaty and for many years the settlements 
were secure from any annoyance on the part of the In- 
dians. This security, of course, encouraged immigra- 
tion, and the whole Miami country began a new era of 
prosperity. 

The services which Anthony Wayne rendered to his 
country, and particularly to this valley, cannot be for- 
gotten. He conquered the hostile Indians who had be- 
come aggressive by victory, and comjoelled them to ask 
for peace upon terms of his own dictation. He re- 
deemed the character of the army of the northwest from 
the reproach of overwhelming defeat, and inspired 
hope and confidence and security in every home on the 
frontier. 



The Miami Valley 151 

Robert MeClellan, who shot the last elk that was 
killed in the Miami country; John Wingate, who died 
at S}"mmes' Corner, April 14, 1851, and Isaac Paxton, 
the old silversmith, of Hamilton, served throughout 
this entire campaign. 

General Wayne died at Presque Isle, on his way to 
the seat of government, in 1796, in the tifty-seeond year 
of his age, after having received the surrender of the 
northwestern posts held by the British, including Fort 
Miami, and was buried at Erie, Pennsylvania, with the 
honors of war. His remains were afterwards removed 
to Chester county, Pennsylvania, the place of his 
nativity, where he sleeps the last sleep. The benedic- 
tions of this valley will follow the old hero, and his 
memory wdll live in the grateful recollections of this 
people. 

There was another expedition of sad interest- 
though not warlike in its character— to the people of 
the valley. In January, 1792, General James Wilkin- 
son, who then commanded at Fort Washington, made 
a call for volunteers to accompany an expedition to the 
scene of St. Clair's defeat, for the purpose of burying 
the dead. Ensign William Henry Harrison was at- 
tached to one of the companies of the regular troops. 
The volunteers numbered more than two hundred and 
fifty mounted men, and two hundred regular soldiers 
from Fort Washington. They began the march on the 
twenty-fifth day of January, 1792, from Fort Wash- 
ington, and encamped on the hill near the site of FaiTa- 
er's College— known as Lovers' ridge — where they 
remained one day and two nights, for the purpose of 
completing the organization. Captain John S. Gano 
was here elected major. They crossed the Big Miami 
on the ice, with horse and baggage, at Fort Hamilton, 



152 Orations and Historical Addresses 

on the twenty-eighth day of January, near where the 
railroad bridge spans the river, and encamped at 
Seven-Mile creek that night. 

The general in command issued an order at Fort 
Jefferson abandoning one object of the campaign, 
which was a demonstration against an Indian town 
on the Wabash, not far distant from the battle ground 
of St. Clair. The regular soldiers, all on foot, returned 
to Fort Washing-ton. The exiDedition reached the 
scene of disaster at eleven o'clock, but for a long dis- 
tance along the road and in the woods, the bodies of 
the slain could be seen scalped, in many instances, and 
mutilated by the wild beasts. 

It is said that the body of General Eichard Butler 
was recognized where the carnage had been the thick- 
est and among a group of the slain. The bodies were 
gathered together, and in the solitude of the forest, 
and amidst the gloom of winter, were given a last 
resting place. The sighing of the trees will be for 
them a perpetual requiem. Captain Brice Virgin, who 
lies buried at the Princeton graveyard cemetery, served 
under the command of Captain John S. Gano in this 
expedition. 

The early settlements in the valley were commenced 
by the erection of a blockhouse, near which the cabins 
were erected. The whole was then inclosed by a picket 
fence. The clearing was then commenced and the 
ground prepared for planting. A sentinel was con- 
tinually placed on duty to warn of approaching danger. 
The early militia laws actually required all able-bodied 
persons attending church on Sunday, under penalty of 
fine, to carry arms and ammunition. Eternal vigilance 
was the price of safety. 

The Indians necessarily regarded the settlements 



TJie Miami Valley 153 

with great jealousy. They really meant the per- 
manent occupation of the country, and that the hunt- 
ing-grounds of their fathers should become the posses- 
sions of the white man forever. 

The settlement commenced by Dunlap, at Colerain, 
on the Big Miami, not far from Venice, was the first 
interior settlement from the Ohio river in the Miami 
country. On the tenth day of January, 1791, the In- 
dians invested the fort in large numbers, led, it is 
supposed, by the infamous Simon Girty— a renegade 
white man. The day before a surveying party, under 
the direction of Abner Hunt— a surveyor under Judge 
Symmes— was exploring the Miami bottoms in the vi- 
cinity. In the morning, just as the women were milk- 
ing the cows within the inelosure, the Indians made 
their aj^pearance and fired a volley. Hunt, whom they 
had taken prisoner, was brought foi*ward with his arms 
pinioned and mounted on a stump, within speaking 
distance of the garrison. The Inchans promised that 
life and property should be spared in the event of a 
surrender. The ofBcer in command of the garrison 
declared to the Indians that Judge Symmes would soon 
be to their relief with the whole settlement on the Ohio. 
The Indians told the officer that he lied; that Judge 
Symmes had gone to New Jersey; that they had five 
hundred warriors, and that unless they surrendered 
immediately they would all be massacred and the sta- 
tion burned. The officer replied that he would not sur- 
render even if he were surrounded by five hundred 
devils, and immediately jumped down from his position 
overlooking the picket. A ball from the enemy struck 
the plume from his hat. The prisoner was then put 
to death bj' the most cruel torture in the very sight of 
the garrison. The attack commenced immediately 



154 Orations and Historical Addresses 

from behind stumps and trees and logs. The Indians 
ran with burning brands to fire the pickets and the 
cabins, and in the night threw blazing arrows from 
their bows against the stockade and upon the roofs 
of the buildings, with the intention of firing them. The 
attack was continued without intermission during the 
whole of the next day and the succeeding night. They 
raised the siege on the morning of the eleventh and 
marched away. The garrison consisted of only eight- 
een soldiers and eight or ten settlers capable of bear- 
ing arms. The Indians were estimated at from three 
to five hundred warriors, and the Chief, Blue Jacket, 
was supposed to be among the number. The women 
rendered good service by exhibiting the caps of the 
soldiers on sticks to draw the fire, and melting their 
pewter plates and spoons for bullets. 

Olden, in his Reminiscences of the Early Settlements 
of Hamilton County, doubts the presence of Blue 
Jacket, and thinks that the number of Indians engaged 
in the assault was less than one hundred. He believes 
that it was a party fitted out for the purjiose of hunt- 
ing and pluuder, and that the attack on Duulap was 
merely incidental. 

The settlers at Columbia marched immediately on 
hearing the news for the relief of the fort. They 
formed under the command of Lieutenant Luke Foster 
(who afterwards settled on a farm two miles below 
Springdale, and died in 1851, in his eighty-eighth year), 
and were joined at Fort Washington by a company 
from the garrison. On reaching the hill overlooking 
the plain on which the fort was located, they found 
that the Indians had retreated. 

John Reily, the father of Butler county; Samuel 
Davis, who lived in Wayne township; Samuel Dick, 



The Miami Valley 155 

who rests in the old burying groimd at Bethel, near 
Venice ; and Thomas Irwin, who is buried near Monroe, 
all volunteered in the assistance of the garrison. 

The Indians destroyed the corn and opened the 
turnip and potato mounds so as to expose them to the 
frost. A garrison was kept at Dunlap's Station until 
Wayne's Treaty gave peace to the frontier. 

The settlement at North Bend was attacked by the 
Indians with a loss of one man killed and several 
wounded. 

On the nineteenth of October, 1793, there was an 
attack made on White's Station, on the old Hamilton 
road, at the third crossing of Mill creek. This station 
was located near whei'e the aqueduct of the canal 
crosses Mill creek, adjoining the fair grounds at Car- 
thage. The Indians numbered about thirty and were 
sheltered behind the trees south of where the residence 
of William R. Morris now stands. They were led by 
a chief of gigantic stature, who was shot while scaling 
the fence, and his body brought within the iuclosure 
the next morning. 

Colonel Robert Elliott, a contractor for supplying 
the United States anny, was killed near the Big Hill, 
south of the old Fleming place, in 1794, while on his 
way from Fort Washington to Fort Hamilton. The 
next day, a party from the fort visited the spot, placed 
the body in a coffin and proceeded to Fort Washington. 
About a mile south of Springdale, they were fired upon 
by the Indians, and the servant who was riding the 
horse of Colonel Elliott was shot at the first fire. The 
party retreated, leaving the body with the savages, 
who had broken open the coffin. The pai'ty rallied, 
retook the body with that of the servant, and buried 
them side by side in the Presbvterian cemetery on 



156 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Twelfth street. There are many here to-day who will 
remember the monument erected by his son, Connno- 
dore J. D. Elliott, of the navy. 

In McB ride's Notes we are told how John Reily pur- 
chased a tract of land on which Carthage is now laid 
out, and associated Mr. Pryor with him for the better 
protection of each other. After some time, Mr. Pryor, 
in company with his other men, went from Fort Wash- 
ington to Fort Hamilton with provisions on pack 
horses. On their way back, they encamped on a branch 
of Pleasant run, four miles south of Hamilton, on land 
afterwards owned by Aaron L. Schenck. The road 
then traveled passed about a quarter of a mile east 
of the old Schenck homestead. In the morning they 
were attacked by the Indians and Pryor was killed. 

The great highway from Fort Washington to Fort 
Hamilton, over which had been wagoned or packed all 
the supplies and munitions for Wayne's army, passed 
near White's Station. Four pack horsemen in the gov- 
ernment service, while stopping at the little stream 
below Carthage to give their horses drink, received a 
volley from a small band of Indians concealed in the 
thicket. One was instantly killed, and was buried on the 
spot, while another soldier was so severely wounded, 
that he died at Ludlow's Station. This event gave the 
name of Bloody run to the stream, by which it is still 
known. 

We stand to-day on historic ground. We are within 
the inclosure of Fort Hamilton — constructed by Arthur 
St. Clair, enlarged by General Wilkinson, and impor- 
tant to the early settlement of the country, because it 
was the first post between Fort Washington and the 
tribes of the northwest. 



The Miami Valley 157 

The fort was built in September, 1791, and consisted 
originally of a stockade fifty yards square, with four 
good bastions and platforms for cannons in two of 
them, and with barracks for a hundred men. In the 
following summer an addition was made to the fort 
by order of General Wilkinson, which consisted in 
inclosing the ground on the north part, so that it ex- 
tended up the river to about the north line of the 
present Hydraulic street. The southern line extended 
to about the site of the United Presbyterian church, 
and from the river east as far as the ground on which 
the Universalist church now stands. The ground east 
of the fort, extending as far as Second street, includ- 
ing the court house square and High street, was used 
as a burying ground for the garrison. Those, doubt- 
less, who followed St. Clair to defeat and Wayne to 
victory, sleep to-day on these veiy grounds. It is said 
that as late as 1812 a laaling inclosing a single grave 
stood in the middle of High street, opposite the Ham- 
ilton hotel. The well near the residence of John W. 
Sohn was used by the garrison. 

That portion of Hamilton north of Dayton street 
was a beautiful natural prairie, and all the rest of 
the ground from near Front street to where the Canal 
is located— except the graveyard— was covered with a 
dense growth of scrub oaks and blackjacks, with hazel 
bushes and wild vines in profusion. 

In September, 1793, the army of Anthony Wayne 
encamped on the upper part of the prairie, about a 
half mile south of the present town, and nearly on the 
same ground where St. Clair encamped iii 1791. The 
breastworks thrown up could be traced many years 
afterwards, at the point where the road strikes the 
Miami river above Traber's mill. 



158 Orations and Historical Addresses 

The town of Hamilton was laid out by Israel Ludlow 
in December, 1794, and was first called Fairfield. The 
early inhabitants— so tradition says— were chiefly sol- 
diers who had been attached to Wajiie's army, and 
remained there at the close of the campaign. It is 
said that active military life had unfitted them for 
pioneer work, and even led some to dissipation. This 
may be explained, however, by the fact that fever and 
ague prevailed to a great extent, and that the use of 
intoxicating liquors, medicinally prescribed, could not 
be "shaken off." 

The first legislature which assembled under the new 
constitution commenced its first session at Chillicothe, 
on Tuesday, March 1, 1803, and on the twenty-fourth 
day of the same month passed an act for the division 
of the counties of Hamilton and Boss. The county of 
Butler was organized under this act, and on the tenth 
day of May, 1803, the associate judges of the court 
of common pleas of Butler county met for the pur- 
pose of organizing the county. The first regular term 
of the court of common pleas of Butler county began 
on Tuesday, July 12, 1803, and the first term of the 
supreme court for Butler county was opened on the 
eleventh day of October, 1803. 

This grand old county had not then been educated 
up to the modern system of taxation, and subscriptions 
to the amount of fifteen hundred dollars were received 
in "money, whisky, grain, stone, lime, brick, timber, 
mechanical work, labor and hauling," for the erection 
of a suitable place for the sitting of the court, and a 
more secure place for the confinement of prisoners. 

In 1804, under the administration of Thomas Jeffer- 
son, a postofBce was established at Hamilton, and this 
was the only mail route in the interior of all the Miami 



The Miami Valley 159 

country. There was then no postoiSce west of the 
Miami river. 

The county of Butler to-day may well challenge com- 
parison with any county in Ohio in the number of its 
broad acres, in the character of its soil and timber, 
in its churches and institutions for orphaned children, 
in the relief which its hands extend to the needy, and 
in the charity which it offers to the unfortunate, in its 
homes where comfort and culture and happy children 
make welcome the gaiest, in its influences for morality 
and good citizenshii^, and in the speedy and unpartial 
administration of justice. 

Of the sons of the Miami valley, either by birth or 
adoption, two have filled the presidential chair, ten 
have been governors of Ohio, nine have been United 
States senators, one has been chief justice, and two 
have been associate justices of the supreme court of 
the United States ; some have sat on the supreme bench 
of Ohio, others have been members of the most im- 
portant committees in congress, and largely directed 
the legislation of the country; many were gallant sol- 
diers in the war of 1812, and more rendered patriotic 
service on every battlefield in the war for the Union. 

On this anniversary of our independence, we rever- 
ently do honor to the memory of the gallant Butler 
and those who fell with him on that day of dreadful 
disaster on St. Clair battlefield, to the memory of those 
tried and heroic men who followed Anthony Wayne 
and perished at last at the Fallen Timbers, to the 
memory of those patriotic spirits who heard the thun- 
der of Perry's gun and defended the honor of their 
country against British domination in the War of 1812, 
to the memory of those who carried the flag on the 
fields of Mexico and planted the banner of the Eepublic 



160 Orations and Historical Addresses 

on the Halls of the Montezumas, to the memory of 
those hardy pioneers who protected the frontiers and 
saved defenseless settlements from the tomahawk and 
scalping knife, to the memoiy of every man whether 
on land or on sea who has lifted up his hand for his 
country. 

Who can predict the future of the Republic? Who 
can estimate that which is beyond? Men of the Miami 
valley, men of Ohio, men, in a higher and nobler sense, 
of the United States of America, this is our country, 
our home, our sign among the peoples of the earth. 

Let us, then, with gratitude for the past and with 
hope and confidence for the future, do all that within 
us lies to magnify American citizenship and advance 
the interests of the Republic. Let us in the spirit of 
a generous magnanimity invoke the benediction of the 
Most High for all parts of our common country, so that 
all things may be ordered and settled upon the best 
and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, 
truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established 
among us for all generations. 



MEXICAN WAR: CAUSES AND RESULTS 

In the year 1800, Latour d'Auvergne, a descendant 
of Turrenne, fell on the field of battle. He had jomed 
the French army in the place of his son, and so ex- 
emplary was his conduct, that he was named ' ' the first 
grenadier of France." Napoleon directed that the 
heart of Latour d'Auvergne, who fell at the battle of 
Neubourg, should continue to be carried ostensibly by 
the quarter-master sergeant of the grenadier company 
of the forty-sixth, in which he served. His name was 
preserved on the roll, and when called the corporal 
of the guard to which he had belonged answered: 
"Dead on the field of honor." 

We stand to-day in the presence of the veteran sol- 
diers and sailors of the Mexican war, who went out to 
maintain the honor of the American flag, whose achieve- 
ments have enriched the histoiy of their country, and 
who returned to share the benefits of the government 
which they defended on distant battlefields. We be- 
speak for them for all time the affection and respect 
of their countrymen. The trust confided was faith- 
fully fulfilled, and the flag which they carried was not 
dishonored on a single field. 

They did not all return. Some fell in the charges 
at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, under Taylor, 
before even the declaration of war with Mexico ; some 
in the stonning of Monterey, on the very streets of 

Delivered Before the National Association of the Veteran 
Soldiers and Sailors of the Mexican War, at the Grand Opera 
House, Cincinnati, Ohio. September 15, 1881. 

11 [IGl] 



162 Orations and Historical Addresses 

the city; some in the desperate and bloody conflict 
at Buena Vista, amidst the roar of the artillery of 
Bragg and Washington and Sherman ; some under the 
walls of the strong castle of San Juan d'Ulloa, under 
Scott ; some went down to death at Cerro Gordo before 
their ej^es could see the unfurling of the stars and 
stripes by Worth on the slopes of the mountains ; some 
perished by disease and camp fever before even their 
comrades from the lofty summits of the great Cordil- 
leras looked down upon the glorious panorama of lakes 
and cities and plains, and homes and villages in the 
grand valley of Mexico ; some fell under the embattled 
walls of Cherubusco, under Twiggs; some gave up 
their lives in the attack at Contreras, under Persifer 
F. Smith; some were slain by the guns of the proud 
Chepultepec; many, after privations of camp and 
wounds from battle, died before their eyes could be 
gladdened by the flag of their country floating in tri- 
umph from the national palace of the haughty city 
of Montezumas, which told of the conquest of the Mex- 
ican empire. 

They are dead on the field of honor, and a great 
Eepublic, mighty in its perfect unity, guards with ten- 
der care the memory of those who lifted up their hands, 
whether on land or on sea, for their country and for 
the honor of the flag. 

Thirty-four years ago yesterday at ten o'clock in 
the morning, the army of the United States, under 
General Winfield Scott, entered the city of Mexico, and 
on the grand plaza raised the flag of the United States 
and took fonnal possession of the Mexican empire. 
Santa Anna made some effort to regain lost power, 
but before the close of October he was an exile, and 
sought safety in flight to the shores of the Gulf of 



Mexican War: Causes and Results 163 

Mexico. The president of the Mexican congress as- 
sumed provisional authority, and on the second day 
of February, 1848, that body concluded a treaty of 
peace with the commissioners of the United States. 
This treaty was finally agreed to by both governments, 
and on the fourth day of July following, President 
Polk proclaimed the peace to the counti'y. One gener- 
ation of men has passed away since that day in Septem- 
ber, and it is perhaps not too soon to judge of the 
causes that led to and the results which have followed 
from the war with Mexico. The passions of men and 
the clamor of partisan prejudice no longer influence 
public judgment to any marked extent. 

The Eepublic of Mexico, in all the changes of her 
political condition, never possessed a firm or stable 
government since 1821, when she ceased to be one of 
the dependencies of the Spanish crown, except during 
the first presidency under the federal constitution. The 
government of the United States sympathized with her 
people in their prolonged stiiiggle for independence, 
and was the first to recognize her separate existence. 
It was expected that the very geography of the two 
countries would create eonunereial and social ties of 
an enduring character; but the habits and tastes of the 
Mexican people unfitted them for the maintenance and 
enjoyment of constitutional liberty, and the country 
became the prey of militaiy despots. The constitu- 
tion of 1824, was nominally preserved throughout all 
these dissensions, but in October, 1835, it was set aside 
by Santa Anna, and the country divided into depart- 
ments, with governors appointed by the central au- 
thorities. The southern provinces generally submit- 
ted, but those at the north refused until submission 
was enforced by the presidential dictator, who had 



164 Orations and Historical Addresses 

broken the league of federation. Texas alone refused 
to surrender her sovereignty, and maintained a suc- 
cessful resistance against the armies sent to subdue 
her. There was no material change in the consolidated 
government formed in 1835, until the year 18-46. The 
authorities then resorted to most arbitrary proceed- 
ings. Vessels sailing under the American flag were 
seized, the goods of our merchants confiscated, and the 
owners or their agents imprisoned with impunity in 
Mexican dungeons. There were renewed violations 
of public law and private rights by every succeeding 
usurper. Promises of redress were postponed and 
remonstrances were followed by new acts of depreda- 
tion. The President of the United States, in his mes- 
sage of December, 1846, says, although a treaty of 
amity, commerce and navigation had been concluded, 
"the course of seizure and confiscation of the prop- 
erty of our citizens, the violation of their persons, and 
the insult to our flag pursued by Mexico i^revious to 
that time were scarcely suspended, even for a brief 
period." The indignities upon the officers and flag 
of the United States were repeated, and applications 
for the redress of grievances were so unavailing that 
President Jackson, in his message of February, 1837, 
said: "To avoid all misconception on the part of 
Mexico, as well as to protect our national character 
from reproach, this opportunity should be given with 
the avowed design and full preparation to take imme- 
diate satisfaction, if it should not be obtained in a repe- 
tition of a demand for it. To this end I recommend 
that an act be passed authorizing reprisals and the use 
of the naval force of the United States by the executive 
against Mexico, to enforce them in the event of a re- 
fusal by the Mexican government to come to an ami- 



Mexican War: Causes and Results 165 

cable adjustment of the matters in controversy between 
us, upon another demand thereof made from on board 
one of our vessels of war on the coast of Mexico." 
The two houses of congress even then entertained the 
same opinion with the president that the government 
of the United States would be fullj^ justified in taking 
redress into her own hands ; but in order, as one writer 
says, that the equity and moderation with which she 
had acted toward a sister Republic might be placed 
beyond doubt or question, they advised the experiment 
of another demand, to be made in the most solemn 
form. The annual message of President Van Buren 
in December, 1837, informed congress that "For not 
one of our public complaints had satisfaction been 
given or offered ; that but one of the cases of personal 
wrong had been favorably considered; and that but 
four cases, of both descriptions, out of those formally 
and earnestly pressed, have, as yet, been decided upon 
by the Mexican government." 

Negotiations were entered into for the settlement 
and i)aymeut of American claims, and the sum ac- 
knowledged and awarded to the complainants by the 
joint conmiission and the umpire was admitted by the 
Mexican government, but the installments commencing 
with that payable in April, 1844, were still due by 
Mexico at the time of commencement of hostilities. 
The relations existing between the two countries were 
far from being of a friendly or pacific character at 
this time, but the negotiations for the acquisition of 
Texas intensified the feeling and made war possible. 
The Texan convention assembled on the first day of 
March, 18.36, and on the following day made a formal 
and absolute declaration of independence. A consti- 
tution was adopted and submitted to the people for 



166 Orations and Historical Addresses 

ratification. The government went into operation and 
continued to exercise its functions until 1845. The 
government of the United States promptly recognized 
the independence achieved at San Jacinto by the defeat 
of Santa Anna, and the example was soon followed by 
Great Britain, France, Belgium and other powers of 
Euroi3e. 

The citizens of Texas were largely American, and 
they wished to enjoy the privileges and institiitions for 
which their fathers had fought as the inheritance which 
properly belonged to them. The question of annexing 
the young Republic to the United States was referred 
to the people by the convention of 1836, and there was 
almost a united vote in favor of the measure. This 
was refused by President Van Buren on the grounds 
that while a state of war existed between Mexico and 
Texas, and the United States remained at peace with 
the former, the existing treaty of amity and commerce 
should be faithfully observed so long as Mexico per- 
fonued her duties and respected the rights of the 
United States. A formal proj^osition was made for 
the annexation of Texas to the United States by the 
secretary of state under the direction of President 
Tyler, and on the twenty-ninth of December, 1845, 
Texas was admitted into the Union, Santa Anna, the 
President of Mexico, expressed the determination of 
Mexico to reconquer Texas, and followed the announce- 
ment by a requisition for thirty thousand men and four 
millions of dollars to carry on the war. It was declared 
by a proclamation that the annexation in no resjDCct 
destroyed the rights of Mexico, and that she would 
maintain them by force of arms. Two decrees of the 
Mexican congress were affixed to this proclamation 
providing for calling all the available force of the na- 



Mexican War: Causes and Results 167 

tion. Under these circumstances the diplomatic in- 
tercourse between tlie two Republics was interrupted, 
and a state of war practically existed from the spring 
of 1845, until the commencement of actual hostilities 
between the Republics. It may be said, however, that 
apprehensions of a war growing out of the annexation 
were entertained by President Tyler and his cabinet 
even at this time. On the fifteenth of April, 1844, 
three days after the treaty was signed, confidential in- 
structions were sent to Commodore C'onnor, in com- 
mand of the home squadron, to concentrate his force 
in the Gulf, and show himself occasionally before Vera 
Cruz. Orders were also issued on the twenty-seventh 
of April to Brevet Brigadier-General Zachary Taylor, 
of the First Infantry, then in coimnand of the first 
military department, and stationed at Fort Jessup, 
Louisiana, to which post he had been transferred but 
a few days previous. The force under his command 
had largely been increased, and he was instructed to 
communicate confidentially with the president of Texas. 
These precautions were deemed necessaiy, and justi- 
fied by threatened hostilities on the part of Mexico. 

At the opening of the session. President Polk in- 
formed congress that the army had been "ordered to 
take a position in the country between the Neuees and 
the Del Norte (Rio Grande), and to repel any invasion 
of the Texan territory which might be attempted by 
the Mexican forces." The claim originally made by 
Texas to the left bank of the river was asserted by 
the government of the United States from the begin- 
ning of the project of annexation until and after the 
commencement of the war, with the perfect willingness 
to negotiate upon all questions of boundary that might 
arise with other governments. 



168 Orations and Historical Addresses 

In December, 183G, when the hiw fixing the bound- 
aries of Texas was passed, that Republic was in the 
possession of the disputed territory, and her civil and 
political jurisdiction extended to its frontiers. Cus- 
tom-houses, post-offices and post-roads and election 
precincts were established west of the Neuces river. 
The public lands between the River Neuces and Rio 
Grande were surveyed and sold, and all the evidences 
of grants and transfers and titles subsequent to the 
Revolution of 1834, were entered among the records of 
Texas. Mexico herself silently admitted the claim of 
Texas to the Lower Rio Grande, although as a general 
thing she made no distinction in regard to any part 
of the country between that river and the Sabine. Her 
claim extended to the whole of Texas and the com- 
paratively unimportant question of boundary was 
merged in the greater one of title. Mexico claimed the 
absolute title and always insisted upon every part and 
parcel of Texas. The battle of San Jacinto was not re- 
garded as conclusive of any claim, and she adopted, 
either voluntarily, or by compulsion, a limit to her ter- 
ritory, and that limit was the Rio Grande. The south- 
ern and western banks of the river formed the outer 
limit of her military posts and fortifications. Her flag 
went no further. 

Mexico undoubtedly considered every attempt for 
the establishment of the authority of the United States 
over her territory as an act of hostility, and in the 
proclamation of April twenty-third, 1846, declaring 
war, the annexation of Texas is the principal grievance, 
and others but so many incidents. 

Even as late as the month of September, 1845, the 
government made another attempt to restore diplomatic 
relations with Mexico, and an envoy was sent, en- 



Mexican War: Causes and Results 169 

trusted with full power to adjust all the questions in 
dispute between the two governments. The history of 
this mission is the history of bad faith on the part of 
the Mexican administration, and a reply was returned 
to Mr. Slidell communicating the positive determina- 
tion of the Mexican government not to receive him. 
The President being fully aware of the hostile feelings 
of the Mexicans, ordered Gelneral Zachary Taylor, 
then in command of the trooj^s in the southwest, to 
proceed to Texas and take a position as near the Rio 
Grande as possible. This force was fifteen hundred 
strong and was called the Army of Occupation for the 
defense of Texas. Commodore Connor, with a strong 
squadron, sailed at the same time for the Gulf of 
Mexico to protect American interests there. 

General Taylor first landed on the twenty-fifth of 
July, 1845, on St. Joseph's Island, and there the flag 
of the United States was first displayed in power over 
the Texan soil. It was hailed with delight by a people 
struggling to be free. The secretary of war, in Jan- 
uary, ordered General Taylor to advance to near the 
mouth of the Rio Grande, because Mexican ships were 
sailing in that direction, with the evident intention of 
invading Texas. On the twelfth day of April follow- 
ing, the Mexican authorities sent a letter to General 
Taylor demanding his withdrawal in twenty-four hours. 
The situation of the Army of Occupation was now be- 
coming critical, inasmuch as parties of armed Mexicans 
had gotten between General Taylor and his stores and 
had cut off all inter-communication. An American 
reconnoitering party of sixty dragoons, under Captain 
Thornton, was killed or captured on April twenty- 
fourth, 1846, on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. This 
was the first blood shed in the Mexican war. Sixteen 



170 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Americans were killed, but Captain Thornton escaped. 
General Taylor marched for the Eio Grande on the 
seventh of May, 1846, with a little more than two 
thousand men, having been reinforced by Texas volun- 
teers and marines from the American fleet then block- 
ading the mouth of the Rio Grande. At noon on the 
eighth of May, 1846, the Army of the Occupation dis- 
covered the Mexican army under Arista, full six thou- 
sand strong, drawn up in battle array upon a portion 
of prairie flanked by ponds of water and beautified by 
trees, which gave it the name of Palo Alto. General 
Taylor formed his army and pressed to the attack. 
For five hours a hot contest was maintained, when at 
twilight the Mexicans gave way and fled, and victory, 
thorough and complete, was with the Americans. 
Among the fatally wounded were Captain Page and 
the gallant Major Einggold, of the Flying Artillery, 
who died four days after the engagement at the age 
of forty-six— too soon for his country. At two o'clock 
on the morning of the next day the army was awakened 
by a summons to renew the march to Fort Brown. 
They saw no evidences of the enemy until toward 
evening, when they discovered him strongly posted in 
a ravine called Resaca de la Palma, or Dry River of 
Palms, and drawn up in order of battle. A shorter but 
bloodier conflict than that of Palo Alto, on the previous 
day, ensued, and again our troops were victorious. 
The intelligence of the first bloodshed in the attack 
upon Captain Thornton, and a knowledge of the critical 
situation of the Army of Occupation, aroused the whole 
country, and before even the battles of Palo Alto and 
the Resaca de la Palma were known in the states, con- 
gress had declared that "by the act of the Republic 
of Mexico a state of war exists between that govern- 



Mexican War: Causes and Results 171 

ment and the United States." The battles occurred 
on May eighth and ninth; the decLnration of war was 
made on May eleventh, 1846, and on May thirteenth, 
1846, the President was authorized to raise fifty thou- 
sand volunteers, and ten million dollars were appro- 
priated toward carrying on the war. On the eighteenth 
of May, 1846, the Army of Occupation crossed the 
Rio Grande, and as the stars and stripes were flung 
to the breeze in Mexican territory there were loud 
•cheers along the whole line. 

The historian says that the secretary of war and 
general Scott planned within two days a campaign 
greater in the territorial extent of its proposed opera- 
tions than any at that time recorded in history. A 
fleet was to sweep around Cape Horn and attack the 
Pacific coast of Mexico. An "Army of the West" was 
to gather at Fort Leavenworth, invade New Mexico, 
and co-operate with the Pacific fleet. An "Army of 
the Center" was to rendezvous in the heart of Texas, 
the center of Austin's settlement, and invade Old Mex- 
ico from the north. On the twenty-third day of May 
the Mexican General made a formal declaration of war 
against the United States. The news of these brilliant 
victories reached the States, and bonfires and illumina- 
tions and demonstrations were made in all the great 
cities. On the eighteenth day of May he crossed the 
Rio Grande and prepared to march into the interior. 
On the thirtieth of May, General Taylor was rewarded 
for his skill and bravery by a commission as major- 
general by brevet. The first division of his army was 
under General Worth, who had been a gallant soldier 
in the war of 1812, and afterward received the gift of 
a sword from congress. For his gallantry afterward 



172 Orations and Historical Addresses 

at Monterey he was made a major-general by brevet. 
He died in Texas, in May, 1849, and a magnificent 
granite column in Broadway, erected by the corpora- 
tion of New York, attests the appreciation in which 
his memory is held by the people of his native State. 

General Taylor advanced to Monterey, and on the 
twenty-first of September commenced the siege. The 
stronghold was defended by Ampudia, with more than 
nine thousand men. The conflict continued for nearly 
four days, and a part of the engagement was within 
the walls of the city. There are doubtless those here 
to-day who will remember that strongly fortified town 
as it appeared in the morning sunlight at the foot of 
the great Sierra Madre on the march to the interior. 
Ampudia surrendered, and General Taylor advanced 
to Walnut Springs and awaited orders. 

General Winfield Scott who was brevetted major- 
general in 1814, and was made General-in-Chief of the 
armies of the United States in 1841, arrived before 
Vera Cruz, and being the senior officer, assumed com- 
mand for the purpose of invading Mexico from that 
point. 

General Taylor now received an order from Gen- 
eral Scott to send to him a large part of his command 
—both officers and men— and to act thereafter only 
on the defensive. 

General Taylor, like a true soldier, obeyed the or- 
der, although visions of military fame were opening 
before him, and that officer and General Wool were 
left with only five thousand men to oppose an army 
of twenty thousand men then gathering under Santa 
Anna. 

Old Rough and Ready was detenuined to fight, 
even with this inferior force. The Americans fell back 



Mexican War: Causes and Results 173 

to Buena Vista, and there, in a narrow defile in the 
mountains, encamped in battle order. 

On the anniversary of the birthday of Washington 
the Mexican army approached within two miles, and 
Santa Anna assured General Taylor by letter that 
he was surrounded by twenty thousand men, and could 
not escape. General Taylor replied that he declined 
acceding to the request. 

Early in the morning of the twenty-third a terrible 
conflict commenced and continued until sunset. Santa 
Anna repeated his assault on the American line. It 
stood like a rock, and with the heroic resistance of 
the batteries of Bragg and Washington and Sherman 
and 'Brien, the enemy was driven back. Among the 
slain were Colonel Hardin, Colonel McKee, Colonel 
Yell, and the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Clay, 
Jr., of Kentucky. During the night the Mexican forces 
withdrew, leaving their dead and wounded behind them. 
In the course of a few months General Taylor left 
General Wool in command and returned home. He re- 
ceived everj'w^here tokens of respect and affection from 
his countrymen. 

The command of the Army of the West was in- 
trusted to General Kearney, with instructions to con- 
quer New Mexico and California. That officer marched 
without resistance to Santa Fe, the Capital of New 
Mexico, while the conquest of California had already 
been achieved. The Mexican authorities were driven 
out, and on the fifth day of July, 1846, the Californians 
declared themselves independent of Mexico, and placed 
Fremont at the head of affairs. Commodore Stockton, 
Fremont, and General Kearney shared in the important 
events which completed the conquest and pacification. 

The command of Colonel Doniphan entered the Capi- 



174 Orations and Historical Addresses 

tal of Chihualuia in triumph, and raised the flag of the 
United States upon its citadel. The conquest of New 
Mexico and California was now complete. 

Buena Vista was the Gettysburg of the Mexican War. 
Secretary Marcy in his letter to General Taylor of 
April 3, 1847, says that it will ever be a proud dis- 
tinction to have been in the memorable battle of Buena 
Vista. The defeat of the anny of General Taylor 
would have been its destruction. Victory for the Mex- 
ican forces would have turned the tide of invasion. The 
triumphant anny of Santa Anna would have passed 
through the gate of the mountain into the valley of Rio 
Grande. The flag of Mexico would indeed have been 
planted on the banks of the Sabine. 

The whole nation, too, would have been animated by 
an enthusiasm that would have sent almost every avail- 
able soldier to the field, enlistments would have been 
stimulated. The factions would have been silenced. 
Mexico, relying upon her seven million of united people 
and her mountain passes, would have strongly resisted 
any attempt to march to her capital. Every advantage 
which had been achieved on the field from Palo Alto 
to that time, would have been lost and the war would 
probably have been prolonged for years. The com- 
mand of Colonel Doniphan would have been cut off and 
likely destroyed. It was a day of immense interest 
to the Eepublic. 

The army under Santa Anna was called the "Libera- 
ting Army of the North. ' ' It was the pride and hope 
of every patriotic Mexican. It marched to the airs of 
inspiring music, and with all the pomp and magnifi- 
cence of war. The footfalls of the legions were 
thought to be the very tread of victory. It was com- 
manded by the President of the Republic in person. 



Mexican War: Causes and Results 175 

It went forth confident of success and was followed by 
the prayers of mother and sister. The address of 
Santa Anna, almost in the very presence of the enemy, 
called upon his soldiers to look upon their country and 
to remember that its fair fields were being ravaged and 
their very hearth and homes made desolate, and on the 
evening of the first day of the battle, the air over both 
armies was made vocal by the music from Santa 
Anna 's own band. 

The judgment of Taylor, the coolness of Wool, the 
grape of Captain Bragg, and the undying heroism of 
our soldiers, brought victory to our arms. The Mex- 
ican army— notwithstanding the declaration of victory 
on the part of Santa Anna — lost heart froin that hour 
and despaired of success. No further attemjit was 
seriously made to molest the American forces on the 
line of the Sierra Madre and in the valley of the Rio 
Grande. It filled the States with bon-fires and illum- 
inations and rejoicing, and its hero became the twelfth 
President of the United States. 

The Mexican authorities scorned tlie overtures of 
peace made by the government of the United States in 
the autumn of 1846. It was then determined to con- 
quer the whole country. The city of Vera Cruz was 
invested, and the strong Castle of San Juan d'UUoa 
with five thousand prisoners and five hundred pieces of 
artillery, surrendered to the Americans. It is impos- 
sible to-day to recount the campaign which commenced 
with the victory of Palo Alto, and ended with the cap- 
ture of the city of Mexico. The army advanced to the 
old capital of the Aztec empire, only to find the strong 
fortress of San Antonio and the walls of Cherubusco 
defiant with cannon and ajDproached in front by a dan- 
gerous causeway. Near at hand was the fortified camp 



176 Orations and Historical Addresses 

of Contreras, with six thousand of the enemy, while 
between the camp and the city itself, lay Santa Anna 
with twelve thousand men. The battle opened at sunrise 
with an attack on Contreras, in which our troops were 
victorious. A similar movement was then directed to- 
wards Cherubusco. The whole surrounding became a 
battlefield under the command of General Scott and 
Santa Anna. San Antonio fell, Cherubusco was taken, 
and the Mexico commander abandoned the control and 
fled to the capital. An army, thirty thousand strong, 
had been utterly demoralized by another less than one- 
third its strength. Four thousand of the Mexicans 
were killed and wounded, three thousand were made 
prisoners and thirty-seven pieces of artillery were 
captured. 

General Scott submitted overtures of peace to the 
beleaguered city, but the propositions were treated 
with scorn, and Santa Anna even violated the armis- 
tice by strengthening the defenses of the citj\ 

The first demonstration was made on the morning of 
the eighth of September, 1847, when less than four 
thousand Americans attacked fourteen thousand Mex- 
icans under Santa Anna at El Molinos del Rey, the 
King's Mills. This was the most desperate struggle 
of the war. The enemy left almost one thousand dead 
on the field, while the Americans lost about eight hun- 
dred men. The haughty Chepultepec was doomed, and 
after a gallant charge the banner of the republic floated 
over the broken castle. That very night Santa Anna 
fled from the capital, and on the next morning at ten 
o'clock the stars and stripes were planted upon the 
national capital, and in the grand Plaza Generals 
Worth and Quitman took formal possession of the 



Mexican War: Causes and Results 177 

Mexican empire. The war was practically over. The 
pride of Mexico had been humiliated. 

The division of General Worth was the last to leave 
the capital. On the morning of the twelfth of June, 1848, 
it took up the line of march for Vera Cruz. The 
American flag after having been saluted by the Mex- 
ican artillery, was lowei'ed from the national palace 
and the Mexican standard once more floated over the 
city. The fiag of Mexico was saluted in turn by the 
battery of Lieutenant Colonel Duncan, which had been 
the first to open its thunder on the battlefield of Palo 
Alto. 

A peace had been conquered, Palo Alto, Resaca, Mon- 
terey, Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, Chepultepec, Cheru- 
busco. El Molinos del Rey, Contreras, Vera Cruz, Mex- 
ico had passed into history, to be judged by the im- 
partial tribunal of mankind ; the veterans of Mexico re- 
turned to the vocations of peace. The honor of the 
country had been vindicated on every field. Those 
who survived the bullet of the enemy and the fever of 
the camp were welcomed as the defenders of their 
country 's honor, while those who survive to-day have 
not only just claims upon the gratitude and affection 
of their countrymen, but just demands upon the bounty 
of the government, whose honor they vindicated. 

The President of the Mexican congress assumed 
provisional authority, and on the second day of Febru- 
ary, 1848, that body concluded a treaty of peace with 
commissioners of the United States, which was finally 
agreed upon by both parties, and on the fourth day 
of July, 1848, peace between the United States and 
Mexico was proclaimed by the President of the United 
States. The war added to our territory a tract of 
country exceeding five hundred thousand square miles. 



178 Orations and Historical Addresses 

The conquest of New Mexico and California, though 
bloodless in comparison with the other military opera- 
tions conducted in other parts of the Republic, has 
been incalculable in respect to commercial advantages. 
There were no powerful aniiies in the field; few fac- 
tories were won, but the officers of the army and navy 
discharged their whole duty to their country. The 
harbor of San Francisco is one of the best on the con- 
tinent, and its importance in connection with the com- 
merce of the Asiatic governments can not be overesti- 
mated. With a line of railroad now extending from 
one ocean to the other, we can stand on the shores 
of the Atlantic instead of the Pacific, and laointing west- 
ward, say: "Yonder is India and China and Japan and 
the islands of the seas." 

It made secure the acquisition of Texas to the Union, 
and ficxed the Rio Grande as the boundaries of the 
Republic. It demonstrated, too, at that period of our 
national existence, the ability of the country to vindi- 
cate national honor and to maintain national rights; 
her capacity for war either defensive or offensive, 
and that a citizen soldierly prompt to obey and ready 
to brave the danger of war and the vicissitudes of an 
unfriendly climate will respond cheerfully to the de- 
mands of patriotism. 

The gigantic proportion of our late civil contest need 
not pale the achievements of the Mexican war. It is 
true that our armies were i^icked up on the banks of 
the Potomac and dropped on the banks of the Tennes- 
see and the Cumberland, and that the nation heard the 
shouts of a million of men as they passed on to the 
ranks of war; but the individual valor of the battle- 
fields of Mexico was as strong and as heroic, and the 
self-sacrifice of the soldiers, who lingered by disease 



Mexican War: Causes and Results 179 

in camp, was as patriotic as found in any camp or on 
any field in the war for the Union. 

The leg which Santa Anna lost at Vera Cruz was 
even buried with pompous ceremonies in the cemetery 
at Santa Paula, near the capital, and a magnificent 
monument, surmounted by the national emblem, an- 
nounced to the world the sacrifice which he had made 
for the country. This Republic, with all its elements 
of greatness, can not afford to be ungrateful to those 
who defend its honor. The heart of the people must 
always beat high at the recital of brave deeds and 
heroic sacrifices, whether that recital be of the gener- 
ation which fought the battles of the Mexican war or 
of the generation which fought the war for the Union. 
The veterans of the Mexican war in return will not for- 
get the high duty of magnifying American citizenship 
and exalting the country in whose service they en- 
listed. Their patriotism will embrace the whole Re- 
public. 

The memory of Buena Vista and Cerro Gordo and 
Monterey and Mexico, won in a common cause and con- 
secrated by a common suffering, may well awaken a 
spirit of generous magnanimity for all parts of our 
country, so that under the blessing of God, even the God 
of our fathers, peace and union may be established 
among us for all generations, and righteousness itself 
shall exalt the nation. 



YOUNG MEN'S MERCANTILE LIBRARY 
ASSOCIATION OF CINCINNATI 

Fellow Citizens of Cincinnati, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
Fifty years ago to-night a number of the prominent 
young business men of this city— nearly all of whom 
are now dead— assembled in the second stoiy of the old 
fire engine house on the north side of Fourth street, 
near where Christ's Church now stands, for the formal 
organization of the Youug Men's Mei'cantile Library 
Association of Cincinnati. The association originally 
consisted of forty-five members, and the constitution 
then adopted, with some amendments, is the organic 
law of the body at this time. 

"We behold this organization after the lapse of half 
a century, as a splendid monument of enlightened ex- 
ertion, and as the centre of a refining and elevating 
power in the community which can not well be esti- 
mated. It has been potent in advancing the best in- 
terests of the community at all times and the silent 
teachings of its books has influenced for good two gen- 
erations of men. It has developed in an eminent de- 
gree the kindly spirit which comes from social and com- 
mercial intercourse and has directed the very best 
thoughts into the homes and daily experiences of this 
people. 

It must be borne in mind, says John W. Ellis, to 
whom the association is indebted for valuable informa- 

Delivered on the Occasion of the Semi-Centennial of the 
Young Men's Mercantile Library Association of Cincinnati, 
Ohio, April 18, 1885, at the Odeon. 

[ISO] 



Young Men's Mercantile Library Association 181 

tion concerning its early history, that Cincinnati at 
that period, in 1835, compared with the present Cin- 
cinnati, was an insignificant place in respect to wealth, 
population, business and everything which constitutes 
a modern city. The population then was less than 
forty thousand. Its wholesale business was done en- 
tirel^y by the Ohio river, and by the canal as far north 
as Dayton; but for the interior trade almost entirely 
by wagons. For the size of the place it had a reputable 
wholesale business, extending in a small way to the 
Upper and Lower Mississippi, along the Ohio, from 
its mouth as far east as what is now West Virginia, 
but a large portion of the business with the interior 
in dry goods, groceries and other numerous wants of 
an interior community was supplied by wagons which 
brought in their products and carried out merchandise. 
There were no railroads whatever at that period in 
the west. The grocery trade was supplied entirely by 
boats from New Orleans. Lighter goods were wagoned 
by the National road, over the Allegheny mountains, 
to Wheeling or Pittsburg, and thence by steamboat 
down the river. Nearly all the retail business of the 
was low these goods were brought from New York by 
the Hudson river and Erie canal to Buffalo, thence by 
the Lakes and Ohio canal to Portsmouth, and thence 
down the river. Nearly all the retail business of the 
city was done on Main street from Third street to 
Sixth street; the wholesale business almost entirely on 
the lower end of Main street, or on Front street facing 
the river. Pearl street had just been opened, but ex- 
tended no further west than Walnut street, and a few 
wholesale houses had begun on that square. Fourth, 
Walnut, Vine, and other streets now filled with an 
active business, were the seat of residences, nearly all 



182 Orations and Historical Addresses 

built with detached houses surrounded by shrubbery 
and the streets lined with trees. Central avenue, the 
Western Row, and the Miami canal were the boundaries 
of population. It was almost at the time when, in the 
language of the minister to the German empire, not 
a quarry broke the beautiful circle of our forest-clad 
hills; when an oatfield ripened to the harvest on Main 
and Thirteenth streets; when quail and squirrels 
played in the early frosts on the site of St. Paul's 
Catholic Church. 

There is now a great city with a population of nearly 
three hundred thousand souls, with a substantial 
growth and increasing wealth; with a financial honor 
like Gibraltar amidst the waves of commercial dis- 
aster; with railways extending from lands of snow 
to lands of sun; with manufactories of steel and iron 
and brass and furniture ; with a museum of art and de- 
sign elevating the standard of taste in all beautiful 
things and assisting in the education of the public eye 
to forms of usefulness and beauty ; with an observatory 
to show and to teach that the heavens do indeed declare 
the glory of God and that the firmament sheweth forth 
his handiwork; and with a university which seeks, by 
a well-established curriculum and an able president and 
corps of professors, to arouse a chivalrous spirit of 
scholarship and to send forth year after year scholars 
and thinkers and explorers and discoverers in all that 
realm of knowledge that contributes to the intellectual 
and moral life of society. 

It is interesting to trace the history of the associa- 
tion and follow its growth and progress. For the 
first few years of its existence it was located on the 
west side of Main street below Pearl street and after- 
wards moved to the north side of Fourth street, just 



Young Men's Mercantile Library Association 183 

east of Main street. Some idea may be formed of the 
extent and character of the association when it is 
stated that during this time the entire duties of libra- 
rian, porter and janitor were performed in turn by the 
officers and directors. The library, at the close of the 
year 1836, contained seven hundred and sixty-seven 
volumes, and some of the leading magazines of that 
day were upon the tables. In the winter of 1836 a 
special charter was secured under an act of the gen- 
eral assembly. In 1838 the first printed catalogue was 
published. In 1840 the association changed its loca- 
tion from Fourth street to the old college building on 
Walnut street. The large garden with foliage and 
flowers and shrubbery which then extended from the 
south end of the college building to Fourth street, has 
long since given way to the demands of trade and busi- 
ness. In January, 1843, the annual contests for the 
election of officers first commenced. These elections 
have become memorable in the history of the library 
and have awakened a spirited but friendly interest in 
the membership. After the strife of the contest was 
over then came the embrace of the Cavalier and the 
Roundhead. It is somewhat significant that the very 
same year witnessed the introduction of gas for light- 
ing purposes instead of lard and tallow candles upon 
which the association had formerly depended. 

The fire of January 19, 1845, entirely destroyed the 
college building, but all the books of the association 
were preserved. Hitherto there had been no per- 
manent home. It was then thought that with so great 
an opportunity for good, more effective means should 
be employed to give stability and permanence to the 
work so auspiciously commenced. An effort was ac- 
cordingly made among the merchants and business 



184 Orations and Historical Addresses 

men to raise by subscription a fund sufficient to meet 
the iumiediate demands of the library in securing a 
home. The sum of ten tliousand dollars was donated 
and in consideration of this amount paid to the trus- 
tees of the Cincinnati College, the association was given 
a perpetual lease, for a nominal rent, of the rooms now 
occupied for the purposes of the library. The asso- 
ciation took possession of the present accommodations 
in May, 1846, amidst the congratulations of all the 
members, and with the confidence that the future of 
the library was assured. 

The association was firmly established. It had en- 
countered various fortunes but it had now acquired a 
strong hold upon the affections of the community. It 
must not be forgotten that in all its vicissitudes there 
was no resort to the tax duplicate — there was nothing 
to rely upon but private generosity. There was no 
endowment save the circulated subscription list. The 
bequests of MacArthur, Day and Kirby came at a 
later day. 

It has been the purpose of those connected with the 
administration of the trust to accomplish the greatest 
good for the greatest number. It has not only been 
the effort to give the library a cosmopolitan character, 
while at the same time it has been the aim to elevate 
the general taste to the selection of such volumes as 
would conduce to a higher and better culture. With 
nearly fifty thousand volumes of books, embracing 
history, biography, jDoetry, fiction, music, science and 
the arts, there must needs go forth the best thoughts 
of all ages to instruct, to inspire, to elevate, to amuse, 
to refine all who would avail themselves of its advan- 
tages, while not less than one hundred magazines and 
periodicals present to the reader the most finished crit- 



Young Men's Mercantile Library Association 185 

icisms of books of current literature as well as most 
thoughtful articles upon the various topics of govern- 
ment and every important measure of reform which 
concerns society. The newspapers on the desks— one 
hundred and sixty-six in number — from Punch to The 
London Times and representing many of the leading 
journals of this country are not only tilled daily with 
intelligence from almost all parts of the habitable globe, 
but the columns are occupied with reports and quota- 
tions from the great capitals and centres of trade, and 
with the discussion of every conceivable subject af- 
fecting civilization. These are read daily by thou- 
sands of people representing every profession and 
trade and industry of a great metropolis. The circula- 
tion for the year which has just closed was fifty-one 
thousand, two hundred and thirty-four volumes. 

In December, 1835, there was a meeting of the asso- 
ciation to consider the policy of a course of lectures 
for the association. The tirst lecture was delivered 
in the winter of 1835-36, on Commercial Law, by Joseph 
L. Benham, a prominent lawyer of the city. He was 
followed by Judge Timothy Walker, Dr. Eobinsou with 
a course on American History; Dr. John Locke, on 
GeologA', and William Greene, afterwards lieutenant 
governor of Rhode Island, on various subjects; and 
then came some miscellaneous lectures. The effort to 
secure literary men from the eastern cities required 
so much expense and the fatigue and cost of travel 
were so great that the project was abandoned. Home 
talent was then employed. We are informed that the 
officers and some of their intimate friends took the 
bold step of delivering their own lectures. This ex- 
ample is commended to the officers of the library at 
this semi-centennial anniversary, but not in the spirit 



186 Orations and Historical Addresses 

of the writer from whom the information is obtained, 
for he adds that "if they did not enlighten the people 
very much on the subjects of which they treated, they 
at least had the benefit of teaching these authors the 
subject of composition and delivery." 

Among the important institutions of Cincinnati is 
the Chamber of Commerce and Merchants Exchange. 
It represents large commercial interests. It is in a 
measure the capital of our city. Nearly all great en- 
terprises affecting the material prosperity of our city 
there originate and take direction. The history of the 
organization of the Chamber of Commerce and Mer- 
chants Exchange is a part of the history of the Young 
Men's Mercantile Library Association. The matter 
was first presented for consideration to the directors 
of the association on May 2, 1839, by a resolution 
looking to the establishing of a Board of Trade. The 
next action was taken at the quarterly meeting held on 
the first of October following. It provided for a pub- 
lic meeting to be held in the hall of the association on 
the fifteenth of October for the purpose of establish- 
ing a Board of Trade. In the Cincinnati Daily Gazette 
of October 14, 1839, there appeared a call for a meeting 
at the hall of the Young Men's Mercantile Libraiy As- 
sociation, to take into consideration such measures 
as would establish a "Chamber of Commerce and 
Board of Trade." The committee appointed at that 
meeting to draft a i^reamble and resolution, which is 
the first action of the present Chamber of Commerce, 
was composed of the most active and energetic mem- 
bers of the Library Association. 

In the annual report of the Library Association for 
1839, the following allusion is made to this action: 



Young Men's Mercantile Library Association 187 

"Among the many developments of character this in- 
stitution has undergone, we note that of association 
with the elder portion of the mercantile community, 
who have cheerfully cooperated, and by their influence 
formed a Chamber of Commerce, as adjunct to this 
institution." 

The Mercantile Libraiy, with the Chamber of Com- 
merce, moved into the old Cincinnati College building 
and jointly occupied the room for many years. The 
establishment of a Merchants Exchange in connection 
with the association was conceived by some of the 
members and in the quarterly report of July 8, 1843, it 
is stated that with the liberal aid of the mercantile 
community the exchange was brought into active and 
useful operation. The history of the exchange depart- 
ment of the Library Association is given in the report 
of the quarterly meeting of October, 1846. 

"The project of a Merchants Exchange was sug- 
gested in the winter of 1843, by a number of the lead- 
ing merchants of the city, and, at their urgent request, 
the exj^eriment of its establishment and its entire man- 
agement was undertaken by the board of directors of 
this association. Active exertions were at once made to 
carry out the plan; a subscription paper was put into 
circulation, ajid a sufficient number of subscribers hav- 
ing been obtained, the necessary preliminaries were ef- 
fected, and the exchange room opened on the first of 
May ensuing. Owing either to a want of concert of 
action among those interested, to the fact that the busi- 
ness of the city did not require its adoption, one object 
of the institution, the establishment of change hours 
was not attained. The reports of the arrivals and de- 
partures of steamboats, of the exports and imports to 
and from the city by the river, canals and railroads, 



188 Orations and Historical Addresses 

and of the arrivals at the principal hotels, all of which 
were recorded dailj^ in books kept for the puiiaose, and 
open to the examination of subscribers, were, however, 
deemed of sufficient importance as valuable commercial 
statistics to justify the continuance of the department, 
and to this end its organization has been maintained 
from year to year by the several boards of directors 
until the first of September last, when it was trans- 
ferred to the more legitimate guardianship of the 
Chamber of Commerce." When the Merchants Ex- 
change became a part of the Chamber of Commerce the 
title of the body was changed to read as at present— 
the Chamber of Commerce and Merchants Exchange. 

This infonnation in regard to organization of this 
representative body of our merchants and business men 
is incoi-jjorated into this address in order that it may 
be understood that all the agencies of the association 
have been directed toward the public good. The work 
has not been that alone of furnishing books and periodi- 
cals and newspapers and chess-rooms for those who 
frequent the library or for those who may wish to 
enjoy the best literature in their own homes and by 
their own firesides, but in matters affecting the ma- 
terial growth of the community and the substantial wel- 
fare of Cincinnati through trade and connnerce, the 
association has been the first to suggest and to direct 
and to solidify until as Minerva from the brain of Jupi- 
ter there comes forth the Cincinnati Chamber of Com- 
merce and Merchants Exchange. It is, perhaps, but 
proper to extend the felicitations which come from fifty 
years of prosperity to this promising offspring. 

It can well be claimed that the Mercantile Library 
aids every measure of education. Everj' volume as- 
sumes the role of an instructor. The true university of 



Young Men's Mercantile Library Association 189 

these days, says Carlyle, is a collection of books. Tliey 
were uttered more than forty years ago but they are 
more the lustrous to-day. Here the living thought of 
all the ages invites to communion. Here can be traced 
and followed the great lines of movement which have 
framed and organized governments and dynasties and 
peoples, and how customs and habits and laws became 
established and settled, upon which rests the whole 
fabric of human society. It is not expected that our 
library will ever hope to rival the National Library 
at Paris with its millions of volumes and which repre- 
sents growth and the gradual accumulations of cen- 
turies; nor the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg, 
which represents not so much acquisition as conquest 
and spoliation; nor the Library of the British Museum, 
which represents the result of patient, earnest effort 
in the collection of books and manuscripts ; but it does 
offer advantages fairly adequate to the calls of practi- 
cal business life, in that its shelves are laden with the 
best literature, of poetry and fiction, of history and 
biography, of science and art and such multiplied 
essays on questions which address themselves to man 
and his relation to fellowinan. 

Activity is often capital ; amid the demands of busi- 
ness where competition awakens energy, the merchant 
and banker and manufacturer cannot devote days to re- 
search and analysis and criticism; these are left for 
the student and the scholar, but the manufacturer when 
weary at the forge of Vulcan may go out and for a 
time commune with Apollo and the Muses. The busi- 
ness man need not go to cyclopedias and manuals and 
folios to the neglect of the desk and counting room, but 
he can in a leisure hour, away from the perplexities 
of business, take up the novel where nature is re- 



190 Orations and Historical Addresses 

fleeted by the miiTor of imagination, and can there 
see the character in circumstances of trial and perplex- 
ity like Morton in Old Mortality, or Oliver Twist as 
described by Dickens, or the gentler sex in impatient 
moods, if they ever come, may gain some consolation 
from Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, or Jane Eyre as por- 
trayed by Charlotte Bronte. 

"And how has Burns," says a writer, "by his won- 
drous touch turned the house of every Scottish peasant 
into an abode of content and love and purity, and every 
simple Scottish lass into a fairy being, and as a reward 
for the glory which he gave his beloved Scotia, has 
made for his poems in the actual homes of Scotland, 
a place next to the Bible, and a thrilling remembrance 
in every Scotchman's heart." 

The passion for history may be gratified in Arnold's 
History of Rome and the Later Roman Common- 
wealths ; or in Gibbon 's Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire, or the Constitutional History of England by 
Hallam, or in the History of England by Macaulay, or 
in Prescott as he tells the story of Cortez in Mexico 
and Pizarro in Peru, or Motley's History of the United 
Netherlands and the Rise of the Dutch Republic, or 
our Bancroft as he traces the history of omv own peo- 
ple from the Colonial period to the time of the Re- 
public. The physician may read of the lives of Sir 
John Hunter and Sir Charles Bell, the physicist and 
scientist can be rewarded by Davy and Faraday, of 
Newton and Dalton, of George Wilson and Edward 
Forbes, while the young lawyer may gather inspira- 
tion as he reads of the story of Erskine's speedy and 
brilliant entrance into a crowded practice and how 
his progress was stimulated by little children crying 
for bread. 



Young Men's Mercantile Library Association 191 

Southey said that if he had to cut down his library 
of fourteen thousand volumes to nineteen authors he 
would retain Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spenser and Mil- 
ton, Lord Clarendon, Thomas Jackson, Jeremy Tay- 
lor, South, Isaak Walton, Sir Philip Sidney, Thomas 
Fuller and Sir Thomas Brown. This severe taste of 
this high authority of English literature would hardly 
be accepted as the standard for a library and reading 
room for this practical and utilitarian age. The want 
is that literature which will address itself to the needs 
of real life, and that the books shall meet a real de- 
mand whether that be in history, or analysis, or criti- 
cism, or poetry, or travel, or biography. This demand 
may be a diversion by way of Nicholas Nickleby or 
David Copperfield or in the contemplation of the won- 
derful career of Don Quixote whose attacks upon the 
windmills were as reasonable and philosophical as some 
later demonstrations against Chicago wheat. The ob- 
ject is to furnish instructive and popular literature 
to the reading public. In the National Library of 
Paris, to-day, there is not one of the million of volumes 
that fill the miles of shelves that is not at the com- 
mand of the humblest api^licant of honorable reputa- 
tion, and yet in the year 1471 when Louis XL wished 
to borrow a book from the Medical Library at Paris, 
he was required to deposit plate in pledge and to get 
one of his nobles to join him in a guarantee for its 
safe return. 

The Mercantile Library offers to its large member- 
ship in the spirit of the National Library, the advan- 
tage of every book upon its shelves. Indeed it beck- 
ons all to come and speaks with a voice even of af- 
fection and says : 



192 Orations and Historical Addresses 

"Thou, whom the world with heartless intercourse 
Hath wearied, and thy spirit's hoarded gold 
Coldly impoverished, and with husks repaid, 
Turn hither. 'Tis a quiet resting place; 
Silent, yet peopled world. Here might thou hold 
Communion eloquent, and undismayed. 
Even with the greatest of the ancient Earth 
Sages and Sires of Science. These shall girt 
And sublimate thy soul, until it soar 
Above the elements." 

It may be said of all great libraries, as it has been 
said of governments, that they are not created— they 
grow. Literature has made rapid progress in the past 
half century, but the resources of the most extensive 
publishers could not duplicate certain old public libra- 
ries rich in the fathers, the civilians and mediteval 
chronicles. It is true that wealth can command thou- 
sands of volumes of literature— Macaulay and Alli- 
son, Gibbon and Hallam, the Encyclopedia Britannica, 
Scott and Fielding, Thackeray and Dickens, Bancroft 
and Bryant, Hawthorne and Holmes— but a library, in 
its best sense, is a gradual accumulation and is the 
thought and effort of laborious years. The best way 
to measure the value of a great library is to contem- 
plate its loss. When the Harvard Library, which was 
founded but eighteen years after the landing of the 
Pilgrim Fathers, was destroyed by fire in 1764, the 
loss was regarded by scholars as universal and irrep- 
arable. The collection consisted of only about five 
thousand volumes, but it contained many volumes from 
the early presses of the mother country, and many of 
the first born of the Atlantic printers. Civilization it- 
self has always lamented the destruction of the Alexan- 
drian Libraiy, and it is well known how the fear and 



Young Men's Mercantile Library Association 193 

sympathies of all lovers of literature were awakened 
when it was announced that the celebrated library at 
Strasburg had been fired by the enemy's shells and was 
doomed to inevitable destruction. Nearly all the great 
libraries of the world have had their origin in private 
munificence and individual effort. The beginning of 
the British Museum was the donation of the fifty thou- 
sand volumes collected by Sir Hans Sloaue— a wonder- 
ful achievement for a private gentleman at the begin- 
ning of the last ceutuiy. George the Second gave to 
it the libraries of the Kings of England, and since 
that time it has absorbed other collections and accumu- 
lated so many other volumes that it is now the marvel 
of the literary world. The Bodleian commenced with 
a collection which had cost him ten thousand pounds. 
The Ambrosian Library at Milan was the private col- 
lection of Cardinal Borromeo, bequeathed by him to the 
world. It began with the economic efforts of youth 
and poverty and went on accumulating as succeeding 
years brought wealth and honors to the great prelate. 
The Imperial Library at Paris was founded in the 
fourteenth century and has sui-vived every storm that 
has swept around its walls for four centuries. It was 
in active operation at the time of the discovery of print- 
ing and it has seen Empire and Republic perish in 
succession. It emphasizes the truth that the lasting 
glory of a nation comes from its letters and its arts 
and that after the lapse of a few centuries everything 
but the thoughts of a people perishes. The Laurentian 
Library at Florence came from the splendid patronage 
which those merchant princes, the Medici, gave to 
learning. Old Cosmo, who had his mercantile and po- 
litical correspondents in all lands, made them also his 
literary agents, who sent him goods too precious to 



194 Orations and Historical Addresses 

be resold even at a profit. "He corresponded," says 
Gibbon, "at once witb Cairo and London, and a cargo 
of Indian spices and Greek books were often imported 
by the same vessel." 

The founders and patrons of libraries desei-ve, and 
will receive, the lasting gratitude of posterity. 
"Among the glories of the reign of Louis XIV.," says 
a brilliant essayist, "the intelligent patronage shown 
bj'' him and his great ministers, Colbert and Louvois, 
to the interests of literature by their fostering care of 
the royal collection of books will be one of his most 
enduring titles to the grateful recollection of posterity. 
Versailles and St. Germain are deserted, the proud 
palace of Marti has long been leveled with the ground, 
the victories of the beginning of the reign of Louis are 
overshadowed by the defeats he underwent at the hands 
of Prince Eugene and Marlborough toward the close 
of his long and (latterly at all events) disastrous 
reign; but as long as the love of letters shall endure 
in France or in Euroi)e no visitor to the great National 
Library can forget the treasures collected by the ef- 
forts of Louis and his two great ministers." 

In the retrospect there is cause for congratulation. 
We enter the future with confidence. It brings with 
it great responsibilities. Founded for literary culture 
and the dissemination of useful and practical knowl- 
edge this association has given to the aspiring a help 
at a most important period in life. With so great op- 
portunities every means should be employed to make 
this influence felt for good and to give stability to the 
work so auspiciously begun. Permanence is now 
wanted. The age of obscurity has passed. Every- 
thing which can give a permanent character to the 
library, or prolongs the influence, must be carefully 



Young Men's Mercantile Library Association 195 

considered. It is tlie little things which pass away and 
in after years are so valuable and hard to obtain. The 
chap books and street songs of two centuries ago are 
among the most difficult of all literature to gather 
now, and yet are the most valuable to show the actual 
state of the people. May we not hope, long before 
the centennial anniversary, to behold the library a 
structure of massive proportions in which taste and 
elegance will be combined with convenience and com- 
fort, and where beauty of proportion and finish will 
lend their charm to durability and strength; where 
alcove and shelf in matchless symmetry and form shall 
contain the best thoughts of all the ages ; where table 
after table will be filled with all the current maga- 
zines and periodical literature of the day, and where 
desk after desk shall be covered with the newspapers 
of every capital and kingdom in civilization. This 
cause should enlist the sympathy and effort of every 
friend of the library and every friend of the city. 

To associate one's name with a public benefit of this 
character is to secure the laurel wreath, and the mer- 
chant princes of Cincinnati can accomplish no better 
work for themselves and for posterity than by emulat- 
ing the example of the Merchant Prince of the Medici 
in affording facilities to the young and aspiring of 
their native city and thus lift the community up to 
the level of better thinking and better living. Unless 
by the power of the school and the college, by the power 
of the pulpit, the press and the platform, by the power 
of the Lyceum and the library we educate public senti- 
ment to a proper conception of public duty, we cannot 
justify ourselves before the bar of the nations, nor 
shall we stand approved in the judgment of the Al- 
mighty. 



THE ORDINANCE OF 1787: 

ITS HISTORY AXD INFLUENCE ON THE NORTHWESTERN 
STATES 

When the war of the Revolution had ended, the prin- 
ciple of representative free government had been es- 
tablished by the arbitrament of anns, and it remained 
for the future to determine whether political institu- 
tions founded upon the Declaration of American In- 
dependence could be maintained as a system of govern- 
ment. The King, in his address from the throne, hoped 
that Great Britain might not feel the evils of the dis- 
memberment of so great an empire, and that America 
might realize how essential monarchy is to the enjoy- 
ment of constitutional libertj'. We have passed from 
the Colonial to the Revolutionary period and to the 
time of the Republic, and have demonstrated that the 
right of self government belongs to any people who 
deserve to be free. 

George III., the reigning sovereign, George IV. and 
William IV., sleep in Westminster Abbej', the mauso- 
leum of Britain's genius and royalty, while only the 
other day all England witnessed the magnificent cere- 
monies of the fiftieth anniversary of the accession of 
Victoria to the throne ; and yet this Republic, mighty in 
its perfect unity, is stronger to-day in the affections 
of the people than at any period in its history. 

With the withdrawal of British arms from our soil, 

Delivered at Springdale, Ohio, July 13, 1887, on the Cen- 
tennial of its Adoption. 

[196] 



The Ordinance of 17S7 197 

and the declai'ation of the treaty of peace with England 
which followed, there devolved upon the continental 
congress the most important responsibility that has 
ever been committed to the representatives of a free 
peojale. In America the principle of individual inde- 
pendence was thoroughly recognized throughout the 
colonies, and it was conceded that independence could 
only be secured by political organization. Individuals 
must be considered as existing for the state. To it 
they owe whatever they have, even life. The fabric 
of the Republic arose from the union of such elements. 

The Articles of Confederation were adopted by Con- 
gress on the fifteenth day of November, 1777. By these 
articles the several states entered into certain Articles 
of Confederation and perpetual union for their com- 
mon defence, the security of their liberties and their 
general and mutual welfare, binding themselves to 
assist each other against all force offered to or attacks 
made upon them, or any of them, on account of reli- 
gion, sovereignty, trade or any other pretense what- 
ever. These articles arose out of the necessities of a 
common danger. The war of the Revolution was in 
progress. Benjamin Franklin expressed the idea 
which animated the Colonists, that they must all hang 
together, or they would hang separately. The cer- 
tificate issued for the support of the Continental troops 
in 1777, had a representation of two earthen vessels 
floating in a sea with the Latin inscription ;S'/ Collidi- 
mus Frangimur, while another certificate had thirteen 
rings, the number of the original states, linked together 
as an evidence of mutual interest and support. 

In the breadth of its conception and in the results 
which have followed its enactment it has been charac- 
terized as the most notable instance of legislation that 



198 Orations and Historical Addresses 

has ever been adopted by the representatives of the 
American people. It fixed forever the character of the 
immigration, and of the social, political and educa- 
tional institutions of the people who were to inhabit 
this territory. 

Daniel Webster, the expounder of the constitution, 
doubted whether one single law of any law giver, an- 
cient or modern, had produced effects of a more dis- 
tinct, marked and lasting character than the Ordi- 
nance of 1787. We see its consequences, said the great 
expounder of the constitution, at this moment, and we 
shall never cease to see them, perhaps, while the Ohio 
shall flow. 

There is no place, perhaps, in the Northwestern 
Territoiy where the centennial of the adoption of the 
Ordinance of 1787 could be observed with more pro- 
priety than in this historic church. The territory, 
upon the preaching of the gospel within its bounds, 
belonged to the Presbytery of Transylvania. This 
Presbytery was organized by the Synod of New York 
and Philadelphia, May 17, 1786. It is true that 
pioneers from Virginia had crossed the mountains be- 
fore this time into Kentucky and east Tennessee, but 
they did not reach the Ohio river until after the Pres- 
bytery of Transylvania had been formed. The name 
of Transylvania was most significant; it meant the 
woods beyond the mountains where civilization was 
just advancing. The Presbytery to which this church 
aftei-wards belonged, held its first session at Danville, 
Kentucky, on the seventeenth of October, 1786. This 
was before the ordinance of 1787 was adopted, and 
nearly three years before the fourth day of March, 
1789, the day fixed for conunencing operations under 
the Federal Constitution. A boy baptized by Father 



The Ordinance of 1787 199 

Kemi)er iu the Presbytery of Transylvania would have 
waited sixteen years before the constitution was pro- 
claimed at Chillicothe as the foundation of the state 
of Ohio. With the exception of the posts held by the 
French on the Wabash, and at Detroit, and on the 
Mississippi, where French missions were doubtless es- 
tablished under the Catholic church, it is safe to say 
that this church was the only religious organization, 
at the time, in the interior in the Northwestern Terri- 
tory, and that the Bible was alone heard in all the vast 
solitude which is now included in the states of Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, in the or- 
ganization known to the Transylvania Presbytery as 
the Springfield church. This church, then, has indeed 
been the centre of a large circumference of usefulness. 
Morality and religion have been taught as the basis of 
good government by teaching men the higher duties of 
good citizenship ; and for nearly three generations of 
men the Sabbath bells have rung out clear and distinct 
in the morning and evening, inviting all to hear the 
word of life. The fathers were descendants of men 
of a noble ancestry; of men valiant for the truth and 
who had the missionary spirit in an eminent degree. 
They did a good work in exalting the nation by right- 
eousness and in condemning sin as a reproach to any 
people. 

The history of the adoption of the Ordinance of 1787 
would not be complete without a knowledge of the 
territory to which it was intended to apply as a basis 
of government. The vast region of country extend- 
ing from the Allegheny mountains to the Mississippi 
river was claimed by France, and was known as Louisi- 
ana. It is an historical fact that France asserted con- 
trol over the territory on which we stand, and the 



200 Orations and Historical Addresses 

standard wliicla floated over the battlements of Quebec 
was the emblem of authority until the overthrow of 
French supremacy in North America by Wolfe on 
September 13, 1759, on the Plains of Abraham. As 
early as 1673 two French missionaries penetrated from 
Canada into the Mississippi valley and realized the op- 
portunity for exteuding French dominion over a re- 
gion of wonderful extent and surpassing fertility. 
La Salle, the commandant at Frontenac, on the banks 
of the Mississippi, erected a column and a cross to 
which were affixed the arms of France. In the midst 
of the chanting of the Te Deum, and cries of Vive le 
Roi, he declared in French, in a loud voice, that in the 
name of the most high, mighty, invincible and victor- 
ious prince, Louis the Great, by the grace of God, king 
of France and Navarre, fourteenth of that name, he 
took possession, in the name of his majesty and of 
his successors to the crown, of the whole country along 
the Mississippi and the territoiy along the rivers which 
discharge themselves therein from its source. The 
British power had not extended farther west than Fort 
Du Quesne before the adoption of the Ordinance. 
By the treaty of 1763, France ceded to Great Britain 
all of her possessions in North America, east of the 
Mississippi; and "on this foundation," says Chief Jus- 
tice Chase, "the title of the former power, to the region 
included by the Ohio, the Mississippi and Great Lakes, 
rests more safely, according to the international law 
of Europe, than on any other. ' ' It must be said, how- 
ever, that long before the treaty of Aix La Chapelle 
English charters had been granted, including within 
their several limits the whole of this country. The 
state of Virginia claimed, by the terms of its orig- 
inal colonial charter from James I., king of England, 



The Ordinance of 1787 201 

in the year 1609, all the continent west of the Ohio 
river, and of the north and south breadth of Virginia. 
King Charles II. of England, granted to the Colony of 
Connecticut, in 1662, a charter right to all lands in- 
cluded within certain parallels of latitude from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. Indeed, after the 
United States became an independent nation, there 
was a controversy with Connecticut which was finally 
compromised by the United States relinquishing all 
claims upon, and guaranteeing to Connecticut the ex- 
clusive right of the soil to three million, eight hundred 
thousand acres between Lake Erie and Pennsylvania. 
The United States, however, reserved to themselves 
the right of jurisdiction. They then united this tract 
to the territory now state of Ohio. This tract of land 
is known in our state to-day as the Western Reserve, 
Massachusetts claimed, during the Revolutionary war, 
by virtue of a charter granted many years before, 
and by virtue of a treaty with the Five Nations. 

The British Government, after the treaty of peace 
upon the close of the French war (1763), by royal 
proclamation declared that all the land west of the 
sources of the Atlantic rivers was reserved under the 
sovereignty, protection and dominion of the king of 
Great Britain, for the use of the Indians. In conse- 
(juenee of this proclamation no settlements were at- 
tempted northwest of the Ohio river until after the 
declaration of independence, when the detached colo- 
nies became free and independent states. Over the 
whole vast extent lying between the Allegheny moun- 
tains and the Mississippi, except where the prairie 
spread its luxuriant vegetation, and where the settle- 
ments of the French or the villages of the Indians— 
the rightful proprietors of the soil— dotted the wilder- 



202 Orations and Historical Addresses 

ness there stretched a mighty and unbroken forest yet 
ignorant of the woodman's axe. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the charter to the 
lands of 1609 had been vacated by a judicial proceed- 
ing, and the company to which it was granted had 
been dissolved, and the grant reserved to the crown, yet 
Virginia in 1788, claiming as an independent state 
the whole of the land west of the Alleghenies, and 
north of the parallel of latitude which now defines her 
southern boundary, raised a body of troops for the pro- 
tection of the western settlers. George Rogers Clarke, 
in command of these troops, marched to Vincennes and 
sui*prised Colonel Hamilton, the British commander, at 
Detroit, and by his prompt action completely destroyed 
British authority on the Mississippi, and detached sev- 
eral Indian tribes from the British interest and thus 
greatly influenced the negotiations which afterwards 
established the Mississippi as the western boundary of 
the United States. The conquered country was erected 
into a county by the name of Illinois, by the legislature 
of Virginia, and a regiment of infantry and a troop 
of cavalry were voted for its defense. 

The claim of the various states for the western 
lands was met by congress, who asserted its title upon 
the broad and patriotic ground that a vacant territory 
wrested from the conmion enemy by the united arms 
and at the joint expense of all the states ought, of a 
right, to belong to congress in trust for the common 
use and benefit of all the states. Virginia, in 1799, 
went so far as to open a land office for the sale of her 
western lands. This act attracted the attention of the 
older states, several of which regarded the vacant re- 
gion in the west as a common fund for the future pay- 



The Ordinance of 1787 203 

ment of the expenses of the war for independence in 
which the confederacy was then involved. It was con- 
tended that it was manifestly unjust that a vast tract 
of unoccupied territory, acquired by the common ef- 
forts and at the common expense of the whole nation, 
should be api^ropriated for the exclusive benefit of 
particular states, while the rest would be left to bear 
the burden of debt contracted in asserting that inde- 
pendence by which the immense acquisition was 
wrested from Great Britain. This controversy about 
the western lands for a long time darkened the pros- 
pects of the union. Maryland would not ratify the 
Articles of Confederation until the thirtieth day of 
January, 1781, although they were adopted November 
15, 1787, because of her demand that the western lands 
should be settled on principles of equity and sound 
policy, and Maryland only signed them in the spirit of 
a high patriotism because the enemies of the country 
took advantage of the circumstance to predict the ulti- 
mate dissolution of the Union. 

This discussion greatly embarrassed congress in the 
progress of the war which threatened the very ex- 
istence of the Colonies as an independent nation. Con- 
gress ai^pealed to the states upon the ground of a com- 
mon ]iatriotism to make liberal cessions for the benefit 
of all, and in 1780 adopted a resolution containing a 
pledge that the lands ceded in pursuance of its recom- 
mendations should be disposed of for the common bene- 
fit of the United States ; be settled and formed into dis- 
tinct states, with a suitable extent of territory, and 
become members of the Federal Union, with the same 
rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence as the 
other states; that the expenses incurred by any state 
in subduing British posts, and in the acquisition and 



204: Orations and Historical Addresses 

defense of territorjs should be reimljursed and that the 
lands ceded should be granted and settled agreeably 
to regulations afterwards to be agreed upon by con- 
gress. In 1780 New York ceded her claims on con- 
dition that the territory should be appropriated for 
the common benefit of those states which should be- 
come members of the Federal Alliance. Virginia fol- 
lowed New York in March, 178-4, but in her deed of ces- 
sion, reserved a large tract between the Scioto and 
Little Miami rivers, and bounded by the Ohio river on 
the south, to ratify the claims of her state troops em- 
ployed in the continental line during the Revolutionary 
war. Massachusetts followed Virginia, and in April, 
1785, ceded to the United States all her claim to ter- 
ritory west of the western boundary of New York. In 
September, 1786, Connecticut ceded all the laud within 
her chartered limits for the common use and benefit 
of the United States, excepting the Western Reserve. 
All these cessions, tacitly, and those of Massachusetts 
and Virginia expressly, referred to the resolution of 
congress of 1780. In the cession of Virginia the terms 
of that resolution were recited and declared to be con- 
ditions of the deed. It should be stated that Connecticut 
granted about five hundred thousand acres of the West- 
em Reserve, in 1792, to certain sufferers by fire occa- 
sioned by the British during the Revolutionary war, to 
the towns of New London, Fairfield and Norwalk. 
These are known in Ohio as the Fire Lands. 

The right of the United States, as against the civil- 
ized world, was now clear and incontestable, several 
states having relinquished their claims by deeds of 
cession, and Great Britain and Spain, who had each 
disputed the western boundary of the Union, having 
conceded by formal treaty the American claim to all 



The Ordinance of 1787 205 

the territory east of the Mississippi and north of 
Louisiana and Florida. 

Congress, by the acceptance of these cessions, be- 
came the trustee of the Confederacy. The obligation 
of 1780, which induced the action upon the part of the 
states, was invested with the solemn character of great 
national compact, of high and pemianent obligation, 
and the faith of the nation was forever pledged that 
the trusts upon which the western lands were ceded 
should be faithfully performed. 

It will thus be seen that the northwestern territory 
was originally in the possession of the Indians; that 
after the conquest of the French possessions in North 
America by Great Britain this whole region was ceded 
by France to Great Britain by the treaty of Paris in 
1763; that by an act of parliament of Great Britain 
passed in 1774, the whole of the northwestern territory 
was annexed to, and made a part of, the Province of 
Quebec, as enacted and established by royal proclama- 
tion of October 7, 1763; that the claim of the English 
monarch to the late northwestern territory was ceded 
to the United States by the treaty of peace signed at 
Paris, September 3, 1783, and that the title claimed by 
Virginia, Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut 
were vested in the United States by the several deeds 
of cession. Congress now proceeded to perfect its title 
to the soil and jurisdiction by negotiations with the 
Indian tribes, the original owners and rightful proprie- 
tors, notwithstanding charters and grants and treaties 
of peace. The Indian title to a large part of the ter- 
ritory within the limits of the state of Ohio having been 
extinguished, it became necessary for congress to pro- 
vide a form of government for the territory northwest 
of the Ohio river. 



206 Orations and Historical Addresses 

The Federal Coustitutiou had not been adopted at 
the time that the committee of which Mr. Jeif ersou was 
chairman submitted to congress a plan for the terri- 
tory government of the northwestern territory. The 
colonies recognized alone the binding force of the arti- 
cles of confederation and under which the War 
of the Revolution was brought to a close. The plan 
proposed by the committee on March 1, 1784, was very 
different from the ordinance as it received the ap- 
proval of congress on July 13, 1787. It was brief and 
provided that both the temporary and permanent gov- 
ernments to be established should rest upon the fol- 
lowing propositions : 

(1) That they shall forever remain a part of the 
United States of America. 

(2) That in their persons and property and terri- 
tory they shall be subject to the government of the 
United States in congress assembled, and to the arti- 
cles of confederation in all cases, and in all those cases 
in which the original shall be so subject. 

(3) That they shall be subject to pay a part of the 
federal debt, contracted or to be contracted, to be 
apportioned on them according to the same common 
rule and measure by which apportionments thereof 
shall be made in the other states. 

(4) That their resi^ective state governments shall 
be republican in form, and shall admit no person to 
be a citizen who holds any hereditary title. 

(5) That after the year 1800 of the Christian era 
there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servi- 
tude in any of the said states, otherwise than in the 
punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have 
been duly contacted to have been personally guilty. 
After providing for the admission of states into the 



The Ordinance of 1787 207 

Union when the number of free inhabitants should 
equal those in any one of the least numerous of the 
thirteen original states, it partitioned the territory 
northwest of the Ohio river into ten (10) distinct states 
commencing at the Lake of the Woods in the north- 
west and to be called as follows : Sylvania, Michigania, 
Cheroneseus, Assinisipia, Metropotamia, Illiuoia, 
Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia and Pelisipia. 
This rei^ort was reconmiitted to the same committee 
and a new plan was submitted on the twenty-second of 
the same month, wliich differed from the first only 
in omitting the names and boundaries of the states. 
The provision in reference to slavery was stricken out 
on the nineteenth day of April, a day sacred in the 
calendar of liberty. This report was further consid- 
ered and amended on the twentieth and twenty-flrst, 
and on the twenty-third was agreed to without the 
clause prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude 
after 1800. Ten states voted for the report with the 
prohibitory clause relating to slavery stricken out and 
one voted no. These states were New Hampshire, Mas- 
sachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North 
Carolina; South Carolina voted no. Delaware and 
Georgia were absent from congress at the time of the 
call. This report of Mr. Jefferson, providing a plan 
for the temporary government of the western terri- 
tory without any restriction whatever as to slavery, 
received the vote of every state present except South 
Carolina. It was repealed in 1787 and until its repeal 
by force of the Ordinance of 1787, was the law for the 
government of the territory. On March 16, 1785, near- 
ly a year after the first plan had been adopted, the 
clause, originally offered by Mr. Jefferson as a part 



208 Orations and Historical Addresses. 

of the charter of compact and fundamental constitu- 
tion between the thirteen original states and the new 
states to be formed in the western territory, prohibiting 
slaveiy and involuntary servitude was again submitted 
to congress, omitting the time named, by Mr. King 
seconded by Mr. Ellery in the following words : "That 
there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 
in any of the states described in the resolve of con- 
gress of the twenty-third of April, 1784, otherwise 
than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party 
shall have been ])ersonally guilty; and that this regula- 
tion shall be an article of compact, and remain a funda- 
mental principle of the constitutions between the thir- 
teen original states, and each of the said states de- 
scribed in the resolve of the twenty-third of April, 
1784." 

The effect of this motion to commit would be to pre- 
sent the question of slavery to congress as a separate, 
independent proposition, and, if adopted, to restore it 
to the resolve of April 23, 1784. The motion of Mr. 
King to commit was agreed to by eight states : New 
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Ehode Island, Connecticut, 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. 
Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina voted in 
the negative. Georgia and Delaware were not repre- 
sented. After the commitment of this proposition it 
was neither called up in congress nor noticed by any 
of the committees who subsequently reported plans for 
the government of the northwest territory. The 
journals show that the subject came before congress 
in some form on March 24th, May 10th, July 13th and 
August 24th of the same year. On the twenty-fourth 
day of March, 1786, a report was made by the grand 
committee of the house, to whom had been referred a 



The Ordinance of 1787 209 

motion of Mr. Monroe upon the subject of the north- 
western territory. On the tenth day of May, 1786, a 
report was made by another committee, of which Mr. 
Monroe, of Virginia, was chaimian, to whom a motion 
of Mr. Dane, for considering and reporting the form 
of a temporary government for the western territory 
had been referred. This report, after amendment was 
recommitted on the thirteenth of July following— just 
one year before the adoption of the ordinance itself. 

It seems that the inhabitants of the Kaskaskias were 
becoming impatient over the delay of congress in pro- 
viding a form of government for the northwestern 
territory, and consequently on the twenty-fourth day 
of August, 1786, the secretary was directed to notify 
them that congress had under consideration the plan 
of a temjiorary government and that its adoption would 
no longer be protracted than the importance of the 
subject, and a due regard for their interest, may re- 
quire. 

On September 19, 1786, a committee of which Mr. 
Johnson, of Connecticut, was chairman, and which was 
appointed to prepare a plan of temporary government 
for such districts or new states as shall be laid out 
by the United States upon the principles of the acts 
of cession from individual states and admitted into 
the territory, made a report which was taken up for 
consideration on the twenty-ninth of September; after 
some discussion and several motions to amend, the fur- 
ther consideration of the subject was joostponed. 

On the twenty-sixth day of April, 1787, the same com- 
mittee reported "An ordinance for the government of 
the northwestern territory." It was read the second 
time and amended on the ninth of May and the next 
day assigned for the third reading. On the tenth the 

14 



210 Orations and Historical Addresses 

order for the third reading was called for by the state 
of Massachusetts but was postponed. The proposition 
in regard to slavery, which on motion of Mr. King had 
been committed on the sixteenth day of March of the 
preceding year, was not in the ordinance as reported 
by the committee, nor was any motion made in congress 
to insert the amendment. 

The plan then submitted to congress ordained that 
the inhabitants of the district should always be en- 
titled to the benefits of the act of habeas corpus and 
of the trial by jury, and prescribed a property qualifi- 
cation of a freehold life estate in fifty acres of land 
in the district, if a citizen of any of the United States, 
and two years' residence if a foreigner; in addition, it 
should be necessary to qualify a man as an elector for 
representative. The first plan did not contain any of 
these provisions. 

This was the ordinance for the government of the 
western territory when it was ordered to a third read- 
ing on the tenth of May, 1787. It was essentially dif- 
ferent from the ordinance of July 13, 1787. It was 
silent upon the subject of the equal distribution of 
estates. It said nothing about extending the princi- 
ples of civil and religious liberty and the noninterfer- 
ence with the mode of worship or religious sentiments 
of the citizens of the territories. It contained none 
of the provisions of Article II which mark the ordi- 
nance as one of the greatest movements of civil juris- 
prudence in the history of the race, and which invest 
life and property with the security and protection of 
the law. It did not speak of schools and the means 
of education; nor of good faith to the Indians; nor 
did it contain that declaration that the navigable waters 
leading into the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence 



The Ordinance of 1787 211 

should be common highways forever; nor did it contain 
the articles of compact which shouki remain imaltered 
forever except by common consent. 

On the ninth of July, 1787, the ordinance was again 
referred to a committee consisting of Mr. Carrington, 
of Virginia, Mr. Dane, of Massachusetts, Mr. Kichard 
Henry Lee, of Virginia, Mr. Kean, of South Carolina, 
and Mr. Smith, of New York. This committee pre- 
pared and reported the great bill of rights on the 
eleventh of July, 1787. It was entitled: "An ordinance 
for the government of the territory of the United 
States, northwest of the river Ohio." It was read the 
second time on the twelfth, when Mr. Dane offered an 
amendment which was adopted as the sixth article of 
the ordinance. Mr. Jefferson in 1784 had reported a 
clause looking to the abolition of slavery after the year 
1800 of the Christian era, which contained no ]}vo- 
vision for the reclamation of fugitives, but this was 
stricken out on the nineteenth of April on motion of 
Mr. Sijaight, of North Carolina. Mr. King presented 
an amendment on the sixteenth of March, 1785, for the 
absolute prohibition of slavery in the territory, which 
was never fonnally considered by congress. The sixth 
article reads : "There shall be neither slavery nor invol- 
untary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in 
the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have 
been duly convicted; provided, always, that any per- 
son escaping into the same, from whom labor or service 
is claimed in any of the original states, such fugitive 
may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person 
claiming his or her labor or service aforesaid." This 
was offered by Mr. Dane on the twelfth of July, 1787, 
and, the great northwest forever dedicated to freedom, 
adopted. On the thirteenth day of July, 1787, the or- 



212 Orations and Historical Addresses 

dinance for the government of the territory of the 
United States northwest of the river Ohio passed the 
continental congress by the unanimous vote of the eight 
states present, viz. : Massachusetts, New York, New 
Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Con- 
necticut, Maryland and Pennsylvania were absent. It 
will be seen by reference to the journals of congress 
that this great charter in five days passed through all 
the forms of legislation— the reference, the action of 
the committee, the report, the three several readings, 
the discussion and amendment by congress, and the 
final passage. It is doubtful whether the prohibition 
of slavery could ever have carried in congress without 
the provision for reclaiming fugitives. It is evident, 
too, that the contemplated purchase of the Ohio com- 
pany had great influence in securing the prompt action 
of congress in the matter of the adoption of the ordi- 
nance, for there could be no settlement without some 
form of government to protect the purchaser and save 
the frontier from the tomahawk and scalping knife of 
the Indians. 

The impei'ishable principles incorporated into the 
ordinance of 1787 began centuries before, but the fram- 
ers of the ordinance were the first to embody them in 
written form. The ordinance of 1787 comprehends the 
Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights and rings with 
the utterance of every colonial bill of rights during the 
period of the Revolution. 

It is difficult to say what would have been the influ- 
ence on the Republic in the event of the recognition 
of slavery in the ordinance for the territory northwest 
of the Ohio river either by silence or by express enact- 
ment. It has since billowed the vallevs of the Missis- 



The Ordinance of 1787 213 

sippi aud Virginia witli the graves of the dead and 
filled the land with widowhood and orphanage. The 
historian Bancroft, in speaking of this very subject, 
says, that before the Federal Convention had referred 
its resolution to a committee of detail, an interlude 
in congress was shaping the character aud destiny of 
the United States of America. Sublime, humane and 
eventful in the history of mankind as was the result, it 
will not take many words to tell how it was brought 
about. For a time, wisdom, peace and justice dwelt 
among men, and the great ordinance wliich could alone 
give continuance to the Union came in serenity and 
stillness. Every man that had a hand in it seems to 
have been led by an invisible hand to do just what was 
wanted of him ; all that was wrongfully undertaken fell 
to the ground to wither by the wayside; whatever was 
needed for the mighty work arrived opportunely and 
just at the right moment moved into place. 

Thomas Jefferson first summoned congress to 
prohibit slavery in all the territory of the United 
States. Rufus King lifted up the measure when it lay 
almost lifeless on the ground, and suggested the im- 
mediate instead of the prospective prohibition. A 
congress composed of five southern states to one from 
New England and two from the middle states headed 
by William Grayson, supported by Richard Henry Lee, 
and using Nathan Dane as a scribe, carried the measure 
to the goal in the amended form in which King had 
caused it to be referred to a committee ; and, as Jeffer- 
son had proposed, placed it under the sanction of an 
irrevocable contract. Fifteen years liefore this time the 
same Richard Henry Lee, in the legislature of Vir- 
ginia, in his first recorded speech declared against 
human slavery, and in behalf of human freedom, while 



214 Orations and Historical Addresses 

South Carolina, by its own laws, endeavored to restrain 
the importation of slaves and remonstrated against 
the commercial system of Britain which kept every 
American port open as a market for men. Human 
servitude dishonored the nation. 

The great ordinance abolishes entails and the rights 
of the first born; provides for a system of representa- 
tives for government as soon as the population would 
justify ; proclaims that the articles of compact between 
the original states and the people and states in the ter- 
ritory shall remain unalterable forever excejit by com- 
mon consent; secures freedom to every person in the 
mode of worshij) and in his religious belief; guarantees 
to the inhabitants the writ of habeas corpus, the trial 
by jury, proportional representation in the legisla- 
ture and the principles of the common law ; recognizes 
in the highest the sacredness of private contracts en- 
tered into in good faith;— encourages religion, morality 
and knowledge as necessary to good government and 
the happiness of mankind, and looks to their security 
through schools and the means of education; observ^es 
the utmost good faith towards the Indians in their 
liberty, their lands and their property, and provides 
for the enactment of laws founded in justice and hu- 
manity as will prevent them from being wronged and 
will preserve peace and friendship with them;— de- 
clares with patriotic fer^^or that the territory and the 
states which may be formed therein shall forever re- 
main a part of the Confederacy of the United States 
of America; proclaims as with the sound of a trumpet, 
that the navigable waters leading into the Mississippi 
and the St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between 
the same, shall be common highways and forever free, 
as well to the inhabitants of said territory as to the 



The Ordinance of 1787 215 

citizens of the United States, and those of any other 
states that may be admitted into the Confederacy, with- 
out any tax, import, or duty therefor ; concedes to each 
state the liberty to form a permanent constitution and 
state government, only insisting that it shall be republi- 
can in form, and then dedicates the whole of this mag- 
nificent domain— an empire of itself— to human free- 
dom and the rights of man. 

It is not strange that Judge Walker, in 1837, should 
say of it: "Upon the surpassing excellence of this 
ordinance no language of panegyric would be extrava- 
gant. It approaches as nearly to absolute perfection 
as anything to be found in the legislation of mankind; 
for after the experience of fifty years it would be im- 
possible to alter without marring it. In short, it is one 
of those matchless specimens of sagacious forecast 
which even the reckless spirit of innovation would not 
venture to assail. ' ' Wliile the late Chief Justice Chase 
describes the ordinance as ha\nng been a jDillar of 
cloud by day and of fire by night in the settlement and 
government of the northwestern states. 

Under the benign influences of the great ordinance 
immigration soon followed. In the summer following 
the defeat of the Indians by Anthony Wayne, at the 
battle of the Fallen Timbers, they came for peace, 
and on the third day of August, 1795, at Green- 
ville, Ohio, with nearly eleven hundred chiefs and 
sachems present, representing twelve powerful tribes, 
a definite and satisfactory treaty was signed and the 
pacification of the Indians of the northwest made com- 
plete. The frontier military posts were soon abandoned 
by the British by a special treaty, and the northwest 
began a career of unexampled prosperity. The states 
of the northwestern territory in 1880 had a popu- 



216 Orations and Historical Addresses 

lation of eleven million, two hundred and six thousand 
and six hundred and sixty-seven, revering religion; 
encouraging education ; obeying the law ; with cities and 
towns and villages and homes ; with churches and school- 
houses and academies ; with rivers and railways and 
canals; with turnpikes and telegraphs and telephones; 
wdth mines and manufactories and machine shops and 
factories ; with music halls and libraries and parks and 
pleasure resorts; with forests and woodlands and or- 
chards and gi-ainfields and meadows; with every lux- 
ury and comfort of an advanced civilization. Ohio, 
the first born, was admitted into the Union in 1802; 
Indiana in 1813; Illinois in 1818; Michigan in 1837; 
Wisconsin in 1848; while a generous tract was left for 
Minnesota which was admitted in 1858, and a small 
corner on Lake Erie which was conceded to Pennsyl- 
vania. The estimated value of all the real and per- 
sonal property of these five states in 1880 was $10,- 
181,000,000, or more than one-half of the total wealth 
of the country as estimated by Secretary Chase at the 
beginning of the civil war. 

The last report of the national commissioners reports 
the number of school youth enumerated, 4,036,835; 
school youth enrolled in school, 2,748,261; number of 
school houses, 47,611; number of teachers, 84,783; ex- 
penditure for public schools, $32,982,000; value of pub- 
lic school property, $81,328,000. 

In 1880 there were 3,062 newspapers and periodicals 
with an aggregate circulation per issue of 7,233,000. 
The ministers of the Protestant church numbered 16,- 
891 with a membership of 2,071,510. 

The report of the commissioner of education for 
1884-5 shows colleges and universities of learning re- 
porting 90; instructors in them, 889; students, 8,594; 



The Ordinance of 1787 217 

value of buildings, grounds, apparatus and productive 
funds, $17,679,000. 

In the five states there were 645 schools other than 
public schools, with 82,178 students. 

In the patriotic work of preserving the Union the 
people of the northwest did their full share. Ohio 
sent into the field two hundred and thirty-four regi- 
ments, twenty-nine companies and twenty-seven bat- 
teries, maldng a total of 319,659 men. Indiana sent 
to the field one hundred and thirty-seven regiments, 
seventeen coinpanies and twenty-six batteries, making 
a total of 197,147 men. Illinois sent into the field one 
hundred and seventy-six regiments, nine companies 
and eight batteries, making a total of 259,147 men. 
Michigan, fifty regiments, nine companies and 
eleven batteries, making a total of 89,372. Wis- 
consin sent into the field fifty-eight regiments, twelve 
batteries, making a total of 961,753 or 767,594 if the 
aggregate be reduced to a three years' standard. 

When the great captain received his commission as 
lieutenant general of the army of the United States 
from Abraham Lincoln he invoked the favor of that 
Providence which leads both nations and men. "As 
the country herein tnasts you, so, under God," said he, 
"it will sustain you." His cool judgment directed the 
mighty host whose heavy tramp shook the continent 
while his indomitable purpose blazed forth in every 
campfire that lighted the way from the northwest to 
Vicksburg and the Appomattox. 

We hail with patriotic pride the sister states of In- 
diana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin— children of 
the northwestern territory, and shining stars in the 
crowded galaxy of our flag. We pledge fealty to them 
by the memories of the great ordinance and look with 



218 Orations and Historical Addresses 

them to the Federal Constitution as the sacred covenant 
of a perpetual Union, and with sublime confidence adopt 
for our motto the words which mark the city of the 
first battlefield of the Revolution : " As God was to our 
fathers, so may He be to us." 



JAMES A. GARFIELD 

In the history of nations there have been three 
deaths by violence that appealed to the sympathy of 
mankind. William the Silent, who fell by the hand 
of an assassin, was entombed at Delft, amid the tears 
of a whole people, while it is recorded that there never 
was a more extensive, unaffected and legitimate sorrow 
felt at the death of any human being. The magnificent 
tomb which incloses his remains will not commemorate 
his name like the historian of the Dutch Republic who 
says that "He established an emancipated common- 
wealth upon a secure foundation." 

Lincoln perished by the hand of an assassin. He 
represented the idea that the Republic should not die, 
and that idea was seen in the blazing camp fires of a 
hundred thousand men. The sleep of every soldier 
who died for his country is made sweeter, that by his 
side sleeps the President of the Union — so kind, so 
illustrious, so good. His praise will be sung by the 
lowly whom he lifted up, and by the oppressed whose 
wrongs he made his own. 

Garfield, too, fell by the hand of violence. He stood 
upon an eminence, when he assumed the high office of 
executive of a great people which overlooked a hun- 
dred years of national life— a century, in his own lan- 
guage—crowded with perils, but crowned with the 
triumphs of liberty and law. In the review of that 
century the civil war was the supreme trial of the con- 
Delivered at the Unveiling of the Garfield Monument at 
Cincinnati, November 30, 1887. 

[219] 



220 Orations and Historical Addresses 

stitution, and he called upon all to witness that the 
Union emerged from the blood and fire of that con- 
flict purified and made stronger for all the beneficent 
purposes of government. Before even autumnal foli- 
age had come his life went out, and like William the 
Silent and Lincoln he was buried amid the tears of 
a great people, and the name of Guiteau was added to 
that of Balthazar Gerard and Wilkes Booth, to be exe- 
crated of mankind. 

There was in the life of this man one principle that 
asserted itself beyond all others, and merits the ever- 
lasting gratitude of the race. It was a supreme belief 
in his country and in the principles of humanity. When 
the call for 75,000 troops reached the Ohio senate, of 
which he was then a member, he moved that twenty 
thousand men and three million dollars be voted as 
the quota of the state. Five thousand stands of arms 
were secured from Illinois through his instrumentality, 
and then began the signing of the muster rolls, the 
stirring music of martial bands, the waving of regi- 
mental banners, the commands of the drill sergeants, 
the organization of companies and regiments. Then 
began the history of Ohio in the war— a history that 
is imperishable, for this state sent to the field two hun- 
dred and thirty-four regiments, twenty-nine companies 
and twenty-seven batteries, making a total of 319,659 
men. He saw as with the eye of prophecy above the 
horizon of sectional interests; above all party preju- 
dices and personal ends; above battle-hosts and even 
a victorious cause, the grand onward movement of the 
Republic, the perpetuation of its glory, the salvation 
of its liberty, the enforcement of equal and exact jus- 
tice to all men, the embodiment into written organic law 
of those principles of government which have become 



James A. Garfield 221 

even inwrought into the habits and life of oui' people. 
It is true that he left the anny before the supremacy 
of the government had been established, but from De- 
cember 1863 to 1880 he was most potent in directing 
the legislation of the country. His history is written 
in the war legislation, measures of reconstruction, 
amendments to the constitution, maintenance of public 
credit, steps toward specie resumption in that most 
eventful period of our history. A monument need not 
be of brass or marble or stone to mark great achieve- 
ments. 

He believed, too, that humanity should be the oracle 
and law giver of a great people; that no man, nor class 
of men, could assert greater privileges than could be 
granted to all without endangering the peace of so- 
ciety; that the destruction of human slavery was the 
resurrection of liberty to the bondman not more than 
the resurrection of honor to America. He believed 
that Heaven has no heraldry and that it was not op- 
tional but imperative that freedom should carry with 
it absolute political equality and the banishment of 
complexional prescription. 

It is strange that in a people like those of the Dutch 
Republic and of our own Republic even one hand should 
be found willing to take the life of the chief magistrate; 
a state which protects the life and liberty and re- 
ligion and happiness of its dependent millions and 
' ' crowds its influence upon them as gently as the atmos- 
phere lies on the cheek in June" should find its best 
security in the respect and devotion of its citizens. It 
may be that Providence is teaching the nation that the 
time of public danger is omnipresent, and that a calam- 
ity so far reaching as the death of the chief executive 
would more cordially unite a people alienated by civil 



222 Orations and Historical Addresses 

war. It is certain that the garments of the dead CjEsar 
were i^owerful and that the rude rents made by the 
daggers of the assassin cemented millions of Roman 
citizens. 

Wliile it is true that the late President believed in 
his party, believed in its teachings, believed that it was 
alone capable of dealing with the momentous issue of 
civil war, and the all important questions which de- 
manded legislative action after the strife had ended, 
yet he had the courage of his convictions as to the 
liberty of the citizen against arbitrary power, and 
contended, with every English jurist and statesman 
from the first year of the reign of Edward III. when 
the Parliament of England reversed the attainder of 
the Earl of Lancaster because he could have been tried 
by the courts of the realm, that when the courts are 
open it is a time of peace in judgment of law. As 
early as March 6, 1866, in the Supreme Court of the 
United States, in the case Ex Parte Milligan et al., 
when the passions of civil war were yet kindled, he 
declared that all over this land one of the great land- 
marks of civilization and civil liberty is the self-re- 
straining power of the American people, curbing and 
governing themselves by the limit of the civil law. 
"This militaiy commission," said Garfield, "sat at 
a place two hundred miles beyond the sound of a 
hostile gun, in a state that had never felt the touch of 
martial law, that had never been defiled by the tread of 
a hostile rebel foot, except on a remote border and 
then but for a day. That state with all its laws and 
courts, with all its securities of personal rights and 
personal privileges, is declared by the opposing counsel 
to have been completely under the control of martial 
law; that not only the constitution and laws of In- 



James A. Garfield 223 

diana, but the constitution and laws of the United 
States were wholly suspended so that no writ, injunc- 
tion, prohibition, or mandate of any district or circuit 
court of the United States, was of any binding force 
or authority whatever except by permission of and at 
the pleasure of a militaiy commander. Such a doctrine, 
may it please the court, is too monstroias to be toler- 
ated for a moment, and I trust and believe that when 
this cause shall have been heard and considered, it will 
receive its just and final condemnation. Your decision 
will mark an important era in American history. The 
just and final settlement of this great question will 
take a high place among the achievements which have 
immortalized this decade. It will forever establish the 
truth, of inestimable value to us and mankind, that a 
Eepublic can wield the vast energy of war without 
breaking down the safeguards of liberty ; can suppress 
insurrection, and put down rebellion however formi- 
dable, without destroying the bulwarks of law; can by 
the might of its armed millions, preserve and defend 
both liberty and nationality. Victories on the field 
were of priceless value, for they plucked the life of the 
Eepublic out of the hands of its enemies, and now if 
the protection of law shall, by your decision, be ex- 
tended over every acre of our peaceful territory, you 
will have rendered the great decision of the century." 
It is but proper that in the metropolis of this state — 
the first born of the ordinance of 1787, the state which 
gave him birth,— there should be erected this testi- 
monial to this distinguished son, who, as citizen or sol- 
dier, statesman or president, had an abiding faith in 
his country's future, and whose whole life, from early 
manliood, was spent in her service. He magnified the 
country and exalted the Eepublic as worthy the noblest 



224 Orations and Historical Addresses 

zeal and best affection. Whether one die by the hand 
of violence in middle life or by the decline of old age 
is a question less important than whether the life, 
while it lasted, were useful to mankind and one's coun- 
try. No human hand directing a bullet can mould 
the fate of this people. The assassin can stop the 
pulse of a single great heart, can make the wife a 
widow, and the children fatherless, can bring our flags 
to half mast, can fill our eyes with tears, but it is the 
hand of Providence that leads nations from the morn- 
ing to the night of their lives. God is naighty in this 
power and beautiful in His everlasting peace. If the 
standard fall, there are other hands to place it on the 
ramparts. 

This occasion will be of little value to us or to those 
who may come after us, if no lesson is taught by the 
statue which will stand for generations on our streets. 
On Calton Hill the grateful citizens of Edinburgh have 
erected a monument to Nelson, not to commemorate 
the glorious victory of Trafalgar— too dearly pur- 
chased with his blood— but to teach young men to emu- 
late his example and like him, if necessary, to die for 
their country. 

It was the fortune of the dead President to have 
seen the flag of his country pass through the storm of 
battle until it again climbed up to the sacred places 
of former years ; to have seen the track of the aveng- 
ing cannon which was followed by the furrows of a 
peaceful husbandry; to have seen charity and mutual 
forgetfulness spreading all over the land like the fra- 
grance of flowers wliich bloom from the beds of broken 
shell and forsaken cartridge boxes on the deserted 
fields of battle; to have seen the legislation which he 
directed crystallized into the permanent and enduring 



James A. Garfield 225 

forms of coustitutional or statute law ; to have seen the 
representatives of the great commonwealth confide to 
him the greatest interests in their power, and then to 
have heard and answered the voices of more than fifty 
millions of people calling him to the discharge of the 
highest trust ever conunitted to man— the welfare of 
a great people and their government. With him years 
were changed into centuries and his short life was 
crowned with the honors of many generations. 

We dedicate this monument in the spirit of a gen- 
erous magnanimity for all parts of our common coun- 
try and to teach the latest generation the stoiy of un- 
excelled patriotism and undying devotion to duty. 



MAJOR GENERAL RICHARD MONT- 
GOMERY 

The insi)iration of liberty belongs to every heart 
that beats to be free, and if the epitaph of Eobert Em- 
mett cannot now be written in all its fullness and the 
walls of the Irish parliament cannot now echo with 
the voices of Curran and a Grattan, yet the Harp of 
Erin will again be swept with even a sweeter min- 
strelsy than has yet been heard from the Foyle to the 
Lea. 

We speak with veneration the name of Richard Mont- 
gomery, who was bom December 2, 1738, at Conroy 
House, near Raphoe, Ireland, and who died too soon 
for his country, December 31, 1775, while storming the 
citadel of Quebec, in the thirty-seventh year of his 
age, the youngest major-general in the army of the 
Revolution. Only seventeen years before, November 
25, 1758, George Washington, then in his twenty-sixth 
year, pointed out to the army the junction of the Monon- 
gahela and Allegheny rivers, and entering the fortress 
the army planted the British flag on its deserted ruins. 
The banners of England then floated for the first time 
over the Ohio, the extreme western point of British 
rule in North America. 

In the very same year young Montgomer^^ was under 
the immediate command of General Wolfe and engaged 
in the capture of Louisburg, the American Gibraltar, 
guarding the entrance to the St. Lawrence from the 

Delivered under the Auspices of the Pamell Society of 
Cincinnati, February 6, 1889, at the Odeon. 

[226] 



Major General Richard Montgomery 227 

Atlantic. During the intrenchment and siege of this 
great fortress, one of the most noted monuments of 
French power on this continent, Montgomery showed 
such heroism and military capacity that he was pro- 
moted to a lieutenant, July 10, 1758. He had all the 
advantages which a liberal education at Dublin College 
could afford, and at the eighteenth year of his age en- 
tered the British araiy, as an ensign of the Seventeenth 
infantry, being soon after called to the field. In 1757 
his regiment was ordered to Halifax, and his career, 
fortunately for America, opened here and not in the 
Seven Years War of Prussia. There seems to be some 
doubt on the part of history whether Montgomery took 
part in the capture of Quebec when Wolfe fell in the 
arms of victory on September 13, 1759. It is certain 
that after the defeat of Abererombie by Montcalm at 
Ticouderoga, July 8, 1758, the Seventeenth regiment, 
the regiment of Montgomery under Amherst, landed 
at Boston, September 13, and marched for fourteen 
days through an almost trackless wilderness to Fort 
William Henry, at the head of Lake George. In No- 
vember following Amherst was appointed to supersede 
Abererombie in the chief command of the British forces 
in America. 

The next year England decided upon a vigorous cam- 
paign by sending Stanwix to complete the occupation 
of the posts connecting Lake Erie with the Ohio ; Prid- 
eaux to reduce Fort Niagara ; Amherst to move on Mon- 
treal by Lake Champlaiu; and Wolfe, with a large 
force supported by a fleet, to attack Quebec. Amherst, 
with eleven thousand men, including Montgomery's 
regiment, took possession of Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point, the keys to the defenses of Lakes George and 



228 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Champlain, and the banner of the Bourbons never 
floated over them again. 

The daring enterprise of Wolfe wrested a magnifi- 
cent empire from French domination. The news of his 
death and victory reached London in the very week 
the Houses met. All was joj^ and triumph— envy and 
faction joined in the general applause, and Parliament 
voted a monument to the man whose s^Dirit inflamed 
every soldier who dragged a cannon up the heights of 
the proud citadel of Quebec. It was under the eye of 
such a commander that young Montgomery first re- 
ceived instruction in the art of war, and in this school 
became such an apt student. 

Montgomery became the adjutant of his regiment in 
May 15, 1760, in the campaign of which Montreal was 
the objective point, and was under the command of 
Haviland whose column approached that city by the 
true strategic line of the Sorel. After the subjugation 
of Canada, by which America, north of the St. Law- 
rence and the lakes, changed masters, a large portion 
of the British forces were detached for ser\dee against 
the French and Spanish West India Islands, which 
campaign doubtless hastened the treaty of Versailles, 
February 10, 1763, and confirmed Great Britain in the 
possession of an extended empire in North America. 

In these campaigns of 1761 and 1762, in the deadly 
climate of the West Indies, the Seventeenth regiment 
performed a full share, and Montgomery reaped fresh 
laurels as a brave and accomplished soldier, and won 
the promotion of a full captaincy in his regiment on 
May 16, 1762. 

The Seventeenth infantry returned to New York 
after the official announcement of peace, and Mont- 
gomery obtained permission to revisit Europe, where 



Major General Richard Montgomery 229 

he remained for the next nine years, selling out his 
commission April 6, 1772, because a favorite had super- 
seded him in the purchase of a commission as major, 
to which Montgomery's services justly entitled him. 
During this period of military inaction he became in- 
timate with Bui'ke and Fox and the gallant Barre, who 
was a fellow soldier, and wounded at Quebec, all of 
whom in parliament were the wann advocates of the 
Colonies in their struggle against the oppression of 
the Mother Country-. There can be no doubt that the 
association with these bold sjiirits gave direction to 
those sympathies which so early manifested themselves 
when the armed contest came, just as doubtless the 
march to Montreal for the subjugation of the Canadas 
fifteen years before he fell at Quebec, first called atten- 
tion to the strategic advantages of the invasion of Can- 
ada in the war with Great Britain. Montgomery, while 
still a captain in the British army, met Janet Livingston 
at Claremont, her father's country place on the Hudson 
— and where Grant is now buried— while stopping there 
on his way to a distant post. He returned to America 
early in 1773, and purchased a farm of sixty-seven 
acres at King's Bridge, near New York, upon which 
Fort Indei^endence was subsequently built. The duty 
of the Seventeenth regiment was in America. For this 
reason when the Stamp Act was to be enforced, an 
order was given to employ that regiment, then in Eng- 
land, which Montgomery receiving with several others, 
declared publicly that they would throw up their com- 
missions if the order were persisted in by the Crown. 
The return of Montgomery to America in 1773, and 
the purchase of an estate near Claremont, the country 
place of Judge Li\'ingston, one of the judges of the 
King's Bench, would lead to the inference that the im- 



230 Orations and Historical Addresses 

pression made by Janet Livingston on the youthful 
ofScer was a lasting one. He sought her hand as early 
as May, and addressed a note to Judge Livingston in 
the spirit of the chivalrous knight: "Though I am 
extremely anxious to solicit your approbation, together 
with Mrs. Livingston's, in an affair which nearly con- 
cerns my happiness and no less affects your daughter, 
I have nevertheless been hitherto deterred from this 
indispensable attention by reflecting that from so short 
an acquaintance as I have had the honor to make with 
you, I could not flatter myself with your sanction in a 
matter so important as to influence the future welfare 
of a child. I therefore wished for some good natured 
friend to undertake the kind office of giving a favor- 
able impression, but finding you have already had inti- 
mation of my desire to be honored with your daughter's 
hand, and apprehensive lest my silence should have an 
unfavorable construction, I have ventured at last to 
request, sir, that you will consent to a union, which 
to me has the most promising appearance of happi- 
ness from the lady's unconnnon merit and amiable 
worth. Nor will it be an inconsiderable addition to be 
favored by such respectable characters with the title 
of son, should I be so fortunate as to deserve it. And 
if to contribute to the happiness of a beloved daughter 
can claim any share with tender parents, I hope here- 
after to have some title to your esteem. I am, sir, with 
great respect, your most obedient sen^ant, Eichard 
Montgomery." On the twenty-first of June following 
Judge Livingston replies from Claremont: "Sir— I re- 
ceived your polite letter by the hands of Mr. Lawrence, 
at Poughkeepsie, from whence I returned last night. I 
was then so engaged in the business of court, both 
night and day, that I had no time to answer it, and tho 



Major General Bichard Montgomery 231 

I would have stoleu aii hour for that pui-jiose, it re- 
quired a previous consultation with Mrs. Livingston. 
Since we heard of your intentions, solicitous for our 
daughter's happiness, we have made such enquiries as 
have given a great deal of satisfaction. We both ap- 
prove of your proposal, and heartily wish your union 
may yield you all the happiness you seem to expect, to 
which we shall always be ready to contribute all in our 
power. Whenever it suits your convenience, we hope 
to have the pleasure of seeing you here, and in the 
meantime I remain, with due respect, Robert R. Liv- 
ingston." Livingston as Chancellor administered the 
oath of office of president of the United States to 
George Washington on the thirtieth of April, 1789, at 
New York. 

The domestic life of General Montgomery was char- 
acterized by that refined sensibility and delicate con- 
sideration which mark the gentlemen. His home life 
was interrupted by his selection as a delegate to the 
First Provincial Convention, held in New York, in 
April, 1775. He doubted his fitness for civil service 
and accepted the position with reluctance. His letter 
during his public service in New York and from Ticon- 
deroga and other points in the campaign against 
Canada, were full of affection. There are constant 
messages of remembrance and devotion even amidst the 
harassing vexations of camp life; nor did he hesitate in 
acting from a high sense of honor when the subject of a 
commission was suggested for a relative. "This very 
evening" (October 9, 1775, near Camp St. John's), 
he writes: "I received my dear Janet's letters to the 
twenty-third of September, which bring me the agi'ee- 
able news of your recovery. I hope to have the same 
account of vour good father and mother, whose health 



232 Orations and Historical Addresses 

and happiness I think myself deeply interested in. 
You are right, I most certainly might have advanced 
Harry to a majority. Disinterested and generous mo- 
tives forever, I hope, prevent me from serving myself 
or family at the expense of the public. Though a 
spirited fellow, he has not experience for such an im- 
portant post. I grant there are others as bad and 
worse— this is not my doing, nor will I ever have such 
a weight on my conscience." 

His last will and testament executed on the thirtieth 
of August, 1775, at Crown Point, soon after the com- 
mencement of his last campaign, attests the same un- 
dying devotion to his family. While he gives most of 
his jDersonal estate to his sister, Lady Eanselagh, of 
the Kingdom of Ireland, yet he declares that the ample 
fortune to which his wife will succeed, makes it un- 
necessary to provide for her in a manner suitable to 
her situation in life and adequate to the warm affection 
entertained for her. He could wish to recommend one 
or two of his sister's younger children to his Janet's 
protection, and made specific bequests of value to her. 
Judge Livingston and his son were named as executors. 
Benedict Arnold was a witness to the will, and that 
officer and Donald Campbell certified that the will and 
testament of General Montgomery was found by them 
among his papers a few days after his death, and im- 
mediately sealed up. A greater part of his wardrobe 
was purchased by Benedict Arnold himself. Governor 
Carleton, commandant at Quebec, sent General Mont- 
gomery's gold watch and seal to General Wooster, at 
Montreal, who sent them to the widow. General Mont- 
gomery left no descendants. 

The title of Richard Montgomery to the gratitude 



Major General Richard Montgomery 233 

of the people of America is best found in that patriotic 
sense of duty with which he accepted the commission 
of brigadier-general which had been tendered him by 
the Continental Congress on the twenty-second day of 
June, 1775. The Continental Congress having re*- 
solved on anned resistance to the oppression of the 
mother country, elected, June 15, 1775, George Wash- 
ington commander-in-chief of all the Colonial forces, 
and Horatio Gates adjutant-general. In writing to a 
friend he said : "The Congress having done me the hon- 
or of electing me a brigadier-general in their sei-vice, 
is an event which must put an end for a while, perhaps 
forever, to the quiet schemes of life I had prescribed 
for myself; for, though entirely unexpected and not 
desei-ved by me, the will of an oppressed people, com- 
pelled to choose between liberty and slavery, must be 
obeyed." From that hour until his blood crimsoned 
the snows of Canada, on that day in December, 1775, 
he devoted himself to the service and glory of his 
adopted country. On his departure for Canada Judge 
Livingston said to him, * ' Take care of your life. " "Of 
my honor you would say," quickly responded Mont- 
gomery. 

The campaign against Canada was intended by the 
Continental Congress to prevent its becoming a base 
of hostile operations against the Colonies by the armies 
of Great Britain. It was designed that Generals 
Schuyler and Montgomery, at the head of a body of 
New York and New England troops, were to seize Mon- 
treal, the approach to which was barred by the stroug 
fortifications of St. John's and Chambly, on the Sorel, 
the outlet of Lake Champlain to the St. Lawrence; 
while Arnold marched through the wilderness of Maine. 
On August 26, 1775, the movement began down the 



234r Orations and Historical Addresses 

quiet waters of the beautiful Lake of Champlain, which 
for uearly two centuries had been the scene of long 
campaigns and desperate battles. General Schuyler, 
in writing of subsequent movements, said to Congress : 
"I cannot estimate the obligations I lie under to Gen- 
eral Montgomery for the many important services he 
has done and daily does, and in which he has had 
little assistance from me, as I have not enjoyed a 
moment's health since I left Fort George, and am now 
so low as not to be able to hold a pen. ' ' General Schuy- 
ler soon retired to Albany, and the command of the 
whole invading force devolved on Montgomery. This 
officer was subjected to many embarrassments among 
which was the failure of the expedition against Mon- 
treal by Ethan Allen, who was captured with many of 
his troops. Fort Chambly was taken and with the 
garrison the colors of the Seventh British Fusileers— 
the first colors taken in the war of the Revolution and 
sent to the Continental Congress. Montgomery pressed 
on to Montreal which was abandoned November four- 
teenth and entered that city in triumph. Carleton, the 
governor of the Provinces, disguised as a peasant, es- 
caped in a canoe and reached Quebec on the nineteenth 
to the great joy of the garrison, who placed every con- 
fidence in his well-known courage and ability, and 
without whom Canada was lost. When the news of 
Montgomery's brilliant success reached Congress it 
passed a vote of thanks, and on December 9, 1775, pro- 
moted him to be a major-general. The coramission 
did not reach him before he perished under the frown- 
ing guns of haughty Quebec. 

The President of the Continental Congress, then sit- 
ting in Philadelphia, transmitted the thanks of Con- 
gress for his great and signal services in the expedi- 



Major General RicJmrd Montgomery 235 

tion committed to his command, against the British 
troops in the Province of Canada. The reduction of 
St. John's and Montreal were esteemed of inexpressi- 
ble advantage to the United Colonies. Said President 
Hancock: "The victories already gained in Canada 
afford us a happy presage of tlie smiles of Providence 
in the further designation of the Continental arms of 
the North, and will, in all probability, greatly facili- 
tate the entire reduction of the deluded malignants in 
that Province to liberty. These, sir, are exploits so 
glorious in their execution, and so extensive in their 
consequences, that the memoiy of General Montgomery 
will doubtless be of equal duration with the remem- 
brance of the benefits derived from his command. At 
the same time that the Congress rejoice with you in 
the success of their arms under your immediate direc- 
tion, they cannot avoid expressing their concern at the 
intimation you give of your intention to retire from 
the service. They are sensible that the loss of so brave 
and experienced an officer will be universally regretted, 
as a misfortune to all America. But they still hope 
that, upon reconsidering the matter, the same generous 
and patriotic motions which induced you to take so 
capital a part in opposing the unprovoked hostilities 
of an unnatural enemy will prompt you to persevere in 
the cause, and to continue gathering fresh laurels, till 
you find our oppressors reduced to reason and America 
restored to her Constitutional liberties." 

Montgomery wrote to Congress: "Till Quebec is 
taken, Canada is unconquered. " The weather was se- 
vere and there were desertions and discouragements, 
yet he led on his band of three hundred patriots over 
frozen ground and amidst drifting snows, keeping alive 
their hopes and cheering them on to endure every hard- 



236 Orations and Historical Addresses 

shiij, by liis own noble example of self-sacrifice and 
heroic devotion to his adopted country. The adven- 
turous Arnold completed his memorable march— one 
of the most wonderful on record— with his half-starved, 
freezing army, through deep swam^^s, trackless forests 
and difficult portages, down the rushing rapids of the 
Kennebec and the St. Chandiere. On the first of Decem- 
ber these two officers met at Ponte aux Trembles, twen- 
ty miles above the city, Montgomery taking command 
of the combined force, now only nine hundred effective 
men, with which on the fourth of December, in the 
face of a driving snow storm, he marched on to Quebec 
and established his headquarters at Holland House. 

Montgomery was now in sight of the goal of his 
ardent wishes, to reach which he had for three months 
endured every species of toil and suffering. In his 
brief campaign, almost insurmountable obstacles had 
been overcome, and victory after victory had crowned 
his heroic efforts. Tieonderoga, Crown Point, Fort 
St. John's and Chambly, Montreal, Sorel and Three 
Rivers had all been cajitured by less than an ordinary 
brigade of American troops, whose march seemed irre- 
sistible and whose prowess spread terror everywhere. 
The Canadian peasantry believed them invincible and 
ball proof— by reason of the shirt uniform of Morgan's 
riflemen. 

The Red Cross of St. George now floated solitary 
on the ramparts of Quebec, for Levi, Sillery, St. Foye, 
Lorette, Fort Chambly, the Island of Orleans, Beau- 
port, and every inch of British territory around the 
city were in possession of the invaders. It was a proud 
moment for Montgomery when he contemplated all 
this, and surveyed the historic ground around him— 
in front the Plains of Abraham, where Wolfe and Mont- 



Major General Richard Montgomery 237 

calm had joined, September 13, 1759, in their death 
struggle; ou either side the battlefield of St. Foye, 
where, six months later, April 28, 1768, the vainglori- 
ous Murray had lost nearly all that British valor had 
won; and beyond, with its clustering associations of 
nearly two centuries, the fortress capital of Canada, 
whose capture would perhaps crown him conqueror of 
British America. 

The citadel of British power was provisioned for 
eight months, was armed with heavy pieces of artil- 
lery, had a garrison of 1800 regulars, militia and 
marines, and was commanded by the brave and accom- 
plished General Guy Carleton, afterward Lord Dor- 
chester, who, as governor of Canada, possessed almost 
absolute power. Investment of the place was out of 
the question ; siege was equally impractical)le, as there 
could be no sapping and mining in the hard frozen 
soil, covered with deep snow drifts. Weeks had now 
passed in unavailing efforts to capture the city. On 
one occasion, as Montgomeiy was reconnoitering near 
the town, the horse which drew his cariole was killed 
by a cannon ball. Biting cold and drifting snows par- 
alyzed almost every movement; sickness and privation 
were producing insubordination, and perils on every 
hand were gathering around their undaunted leader, 
but his soul rose superior to every misfortune, and 
sustained him with the same moral grandeur which in- 
spired Marshal Ney until the last of the rear guard of 
Napoleon's grand army had escaped the pursuing foe 
and the deadlier rigor of a Russian winter. 

It was resolved, in a council of war, held December 
sixteenth as the only remaining, though desperate al- 
ternative, to carry the place by storm. Finally, at 
two 'clock on the morning of the last day of the year, 



238 Orations and Historical Addresses 

the whole command was paraded in three columns for 
the last dread trial ; the morning was dark and gloomy ; 
a violent pelting storm of cutting hail almost blinded 
the men, and the drifting snows obliterated all traces 
of highways. The soldiers wore hemlock sprigs to 
recognize each other, while others had pieces of white 
paper in their caps on which they had written "Liberty 
or death. " A more daring attack than that which they 
were about to make has never been recorded on the 
pages of history. The two assaulting columns of Mont- 
gomery and Arnold began the march at five o'clock in 
the morning. The bells of the city sounded the alarm. 
Arnold's forlorn hope, led by Arnold himself, attacked 
and carried the battery after a desperate resistance in 
which that officer was severely wounded and had to 
be carried to the hospital. It was now daylight, and 
many of the best officers and men had been killed and 
wounded; hesitation and doubt seized the survivors, 
and the critical moment for the last cast of fortune 
was allowed to pass, when Captain Lam, at the head of 
two hundred of the garrison, sortied from the palace 
gate, cutting off the retreat of the Americans, nearly 
four hundred of whom were captured, the remaining 
survivors having escaped across the ice which covered 
the bay of St. Charles. At the same time that Arnold's 
division began its march, Montgomery, who could not 
be persuaded that the coimnander-in-chief should not 
expose his life in the advance, descended from the 
Plains of Abraham, at the head of a column of less 
than three hundred men, to the cove where Wolfe 
landed in 1759, and then in Indian file, cautiously led 
his forlorn hope along the margin of the St. Lawrence 
toward the very narrow pass of Pres d'Ville. The 
defile, only wide enough for two or three abreast was 



Major General Richard Montgomery 239 

swept by a battery of three-pounders loaded witli grape 
and placed in a block house. At daybreak Montgom- 
erj^'s approach was discovered by the guard, and the 
gumiers who had been kept under arms awaiting the 
attack, which they had reason to expect from the re- 
ports of deserters. Montgomery, while the rear of 
his column was coming up with the ladders, halted to 
reconnoiter in the dim dawn, which was darkened with 
the driving northeast storm. Deceived by the silence 
of the enemy, who with postfires lighted was eagerly 
waiting for his approach, and when within fifty yards 
of the guns, Montgomery cried out to his little band, 
as soon as about sixty were assembled : "Men of New 
York! You will not fear to follow where your gen- 
eral leads! March on, brave boys ! Quebec is ours!" 
and then rushed boldly to charge the battery over the 
drifted snow and blocks of ice, some of which he 
cleared away with his own hands to make room for 
his troops. The enemy, waiting for this critical mo- 
ment, discharged a shower of grape and musketry, with 
deadly precision, into the very faces of their assail- 
ants. Montgomery, pierced with three balls, his aide, 
MacPherson, the gallant Captain Cheeseman, and ten 
others were instantlj^ killed. Carleton, the commandant 
of the post, was uncertain for several hours after the 
repulse as to Montgomery's fate, but a field officer 
among the captured troops of Arnold's detachment 
recognized among the thirteen frozen corpses, lying as 
they fell, in their winding sheet of snow, the Spartan 
leader of the heroic band. Through the courtesy of 
Carleton, the commanding general of the British forces, 
the body of Montgomery was privately interred, Jan- 
uary 4, 1776, at the gorge of the St. Louis bastion. 
His short and light sword, of which he had thrown 



240 Orations and Historical Addresses 

away the scabbard, was found near bim, and is now 
in the museum of the Literary and Historical Society 
at Morrin College, Quebec. 

It is related that, "Wlien the battle was over thir- 
teen bodies were found at the place now known as 
Pres de Ville. That of Cheeseraan, whose career had 
been brief but gallant, had fallen over the rocks. In 
the pathway lay MacPherson, the pure minded, youth- 
ful enthusiast for liberty, as spotless as the new-fallen 
snow which was his winding sheet, full of promise for 
war, lovely in temper, dear to the ai*my, honored by 
the affection and confidence of his chief. There, too, 
by his side, la,y Richard Montgomery, on the spot 
where he fell. At his death he was in the first month 
of his fortieth year. He was tall and slender, well 
limbed, of a graceful address, and an active frame ; he 
could endure fatigue, and all changes and severities 
of climate; his judgment was cool, though he kindled 
in action, imparting sympathetic courage ; never negli- 
gent of duty, never avoiding danger, discriminating and 
energetic, he had the power of conducting free men by 
their voluntary love and esteem; an experienced sol- 
dier, he was well versed in letters and in natural 
science; in private life he was a good husband, brother 
and son, an amiable and faithful friend; he overcame 
difficulties which others shunned to encounter ; foes and 
friends paid tribute to his worth. The governor, 
lieutenant governor, and council of Quebec, and all 
the iDrincipal officers of the garrison, buried him and 
his aide-de-camp, MacPherson, with the honors of 
war. ' ' 

At the news of his death, the city of Philadelphia 
was in tears; every person seemed to have lost their 
nearest friend. Congress proclaimed for him "their 



Major General Richard Montgomery 241 

grateful remembrance, respect, and high veneration; 
and, desiring to transmit to future ages a truly worthy- 
example of patriotism, conduct, boldness of enterprise, 
insui^erable perseverance, and contempt of danger and 
death," they reared a marble monument to the glory 
of Eichard Montgomery. 

Frederick of Prussia gave him praise as a military 
chief. In the British parliament Bar re, his veteran 
fellow-soldier in the late war, wept profusely as he 
expatiated on their fast friendship and participation 
of service in the season of enterprise and glory, when 
Canada was conquered for Britain, and, holding up 
the British commanders in review, pronounced a glow- 
ing tribute to his superior merits. Edmund Burke 
contrasted the condition of the eight thousand men, 
starved, disgraced, and shut up within the single town 
of Boston, with the movements of the hero, who in one 
campaign had conquered two-thirds of Canada. "I," 
replied North, "cannot join in lamenting the death of 
Montgomery as a public loss. Curses on his virtues; 
they've undone his country. He was brave, he was 
able, he was humane, he was generous ; but still he was 
only a brave, able, humane, and generous rebel." "The 
term of rebel," retorted Fox, "is no certain mask of 
disgrace. The great assertors of liberty, the saviors 
of their country, the benefactors of mankind in all 
ages, have been called rebels. We owe the constitution 
which enables us to sit in this house to a rebellion." 

If Montesquieu sketched a government which should 
make liberty its end, Montgomery died that such a gov- 
ernment might be realized on the continent of America. 
The blood shed on the heights of Quebec was not less 
sacred than that shed at Concord and Lexington, and 
sixty millions of free men to-day rejoice in the sublime 

16 



242 Orations and Historical Addresses 

consciousness and absolute securitj^ of free institu- 
tions. Partisan zeal and the conflict of parties now 
and then may disturb social order, but they are only 
as the winds playing capriciously round some ancient 
structure whose massive buttresses tranquilly bear up 
its roofs and towers and pinnacles and spires as they 
point to the stars. 

The life of Richard Montgomery teaches that there 
is something in fixedness of principle and devotion to 
country. Three men stood, that eventful day, before 
the citadel of Quebec, whose names are conspicuous 
in American history. One of them afterwards ren- 
dered important services to his country and was most 
instrumental in forcing the surrender of Burgoyne at 
Saratoga, October 17, 1777, which revived the drooping 
hopes of the patriots and spread joy and exultation 
throughout the country. A magnificent monument has 
been erected on that field to tell of those who con- 
tributed to its glory. Gates and Schuyler and Morgan 
are there, but one niche is left vacant, like that of the 
unworthy Doge of Venice— to speak silently of the 
treason of Benedict Arnold, who died in exile from the 
country against which, in an evil hour, he had uplifted 
his hand. Another was a colonel in the army of the 
Revolution, became Vice-President of the United 
States and with one more vote would have reached the 
pinnacle of human ambition— the Presidency of the 
United States. He was indicted and tried for treason 
by his countrymen, and though his biographer, Parton, 
may attempt to throw the responsibility of the duel 
on Alexander Hamilton, yet he died under a great 
shadow; and only the other day I stood at a little 
monument at the foot of his father's grave erected in 
the night by unknown hands which tells of Aaron Burr. 



Major General Richard Montgomery 243 

Forty-three years after Montgomery fell his re- 
mains were removed from Quebec by "an act of honor" 
of the New York legislature, and were buried July 18, 
1818, with brilliant military ceremonies, near the 
cenotaph erected by Congress. The remains lay in 
state at the capitol at Albany. The vessel which bore 
his body down the Hudson was received with muffled 
drums, mournful music and uncovered heads along the 
cities and villages near the river. Janet Li\'ingston, 
his widow, looked at the sad pageant from Montgomery 
Place, with broken heart, and was found in an insensi- 
ble condition after the Richmond had passed. 

The young American either by birth or adoption, in 
passing along Broadway in the center of the great 
metropolis of his country, can read on the front of the 
Church of St. Paul a classical inscription penned by 
the hand of Benjamin Franklin and adopted by the 
Continental Congress even before the Declaration of 
Independence. It can be read with no less sincere af- 
fection after the lapse of more than one hundred years 
because it tells that "This monument is erected by 
order of Congress January 25, 177G, to transiuit to pos- 
terity a grateful remembrance of the patriotism, con- 
duct, enterprise and perseverence of Major-general 
Eiehard Montgomery, who, after a sei'ies of successes, 
amidst the most discouraging difficulties, fell in the 
attack on Quebec December 31, 1775, aged 37 years." 

His sword, the symbol of his martial honor, lay close 
beside him upon the crimson stained snow. Some day 
another Montgomery, or, perhaps, the better counsels 
of peace, will plant the flag of the United States upon 
the proud battlements of Quebec, as the emblem of 
the power and greatness and glory of an ocean bound 
Eepublic. 



IN MEMORY OF JUDGE E. F. NOYES, E. C. 
WILLIAMS AND JUDGE J. A. JORDAN 

Brethren of the Bar: 

The occasion which calls us together this morning is, 
perhaps, the most solemn and impressive in the history 
of this bar. Since the separation of the summer vaca- 
tion, three of our number have passed away: Noyes, 
genial and chivalric; Williams, gentle hearted and com- 
panionable, and Jordan, courteous in demeanor toward 
both bench and brethren. 

One had scarcely reached the meridian, while the 
shadows had not greatly lengthened for the other two 
when evening came and enveloped them in the fold of 
night. Indeed, their names have gone from among the 
living as softly and noiselessly as the sunlight fades 
from the hills. If the classics, called the studies of 
scholars— history, eloquence, poetry, music, art, the hu- 
manities—because they conquered in the name of peace, 
so, likewise, in our social and professional life, there 
are the gentler expressions of thought and word and 
action, which are termed the amenities; and these our 
friends valued and cultivated in daily contact with their 
fellow men. They realized that intolerance is born of 
egotism, and that selfishness comes of ignorance. They 
believed in a charity as universal as human weakness, 
and as omnipresent as the infirmities of human life. 
They did not grope in the darkness to search for doubts 
and phantoms, but walked in the sunshine, and re- 
Remarks as Chairman of the Bar Meeting, held October 
18, 1890. 

[ 244] 



Judges Noijes, Williams and Jordan 245 

joiced in bird-song and budding flower. They recog- 
nized the Golden Eule as the very foundation of public 
and private justice, and only wished with old Plato, in 
the Eleventh Book of the Dialogues, the same measure 
for themselves that they would mete out to others. In 
the world in which they moved there could be no re- 
ligion, no education, no society, no law without this di- 
vine spirit. 

Nor did they regard severity of disposition as neces- 
sary to maintain the dignity of their calling, but rather 
found an example in Sir Henry More, the first Lay 
Chancellor of England, throughout whose honored life 
there was a merry humor that even followed him to 
the scaffold, to which he had been sent by the order 
of a merciless tyrant. 

It may well be claimed for them all that they met 
the demands of a high professional honor, and filled 
the measure of good citizenship. Each returning day. 
and each succeeding season, brings us nearer to them 
and to the Infinite and the Unfathomable on which they 
have entered. The docket of our courts will continue 
to be called from term to term, and there will be the 
fraternal greetings in the library from time to time; 
they will not be there, but the tender memories which 
cluster about their lives will not be dimmed with the 
coming and going of the years. Surely the admoni- 
tion comes to us with amazing force this morning, that 
we can not walk too thoughtfully nor too carefully on 
the shore of life's great ocean. Our little barks will 
soon set sail on the same illimitable sea. 

These memorial exercises are not intended to mag- 
nify the profession of law, for the history of the pro- 
fession is the history of civilization. It has made se- 
cure the social fabric ; it has clothed the harsher enact- 



246 Orations and Historical Addresses 

ments of legislative authority in the softer syllables of 
charity and love. It is true that there may have been 
a Finch, the attorney-general of James II., to procure 
the conviction and death of the pure and virtuous Rus- 
sell, and who, when he would have relieved himself in 
Parliament, only eight years afterward, of the odium 
of the act, was compelled to take his seat amidst the 
indignant clamor of the House; and there may have 
been a bloody Jeffries, who only escaped death upon 
the scaffold by perishing miserably in a prison cell, 
and whose name will be execrated as long as recollected. 
But after all, there is a Lord Hale, whose memory goes 
through the generations like a perpetual benediction. 
and there is the sublime example of Lord Coke, who 
declared, even in the presence of the king, when the 
royal prerogative was involved, that when the case hap- 
pened he would do that which shall be fit for a judge 
to do. 

In every age the lawyers have been the defenders 
of the peoples' rights, like Erskine when he contended 
for freedom of speech in the Stockdale trials; or like 
Hamilton, of whom it is said, that he established the 
true doctrine of libel in a single effort; or like Lincoln, 
the Springfield lawj^er, who, in a patriotic period, di- 
rected a great people in the path of liberty and union ; 
or like Stanton and Chase, of our own state bar, who 
so wielded the potent forces of war and finance that 
the flag was soon again restored to the high places. 

To magnify this high profession to which, not as con- 
script, but as consecrated, we have been called, each 
one of us, like our departed brethren, must pursue his 
duty with fidelity and then calmly wait for time and 
eternity to tell how well that duty has been performed. 

If I were permitted this morning to indulge my feel- 



Judges Noyes, Williams and Jordan 247 

ings, it would be to speak of Noyes in the sweetness 
of an aflfectiou which comes from the ripened intimacy 
of the consultation room; of Williams in the warmth 
of a friendship which began in boyhood, followed him 
on his marriage day, and manifested itself in the pres- 
sure of his hand in the last good bye at the Lakes, while, 
unconscious to both, the seal of death was upon him; 
and of Jordan, in the generous confidence, awakened 
by years of the most pleasant, professional and social 
relations. The tributes which were laid on his grave 
by the bar of Montgomery county, where his life was 
mostly passed, attest more eloquently than words of 
mine how strongly he bound his friends and neighbors 
by the cords of affection. 

We lament them with a sincere and abiding regret, 
just as running brooks deepen their channels as they go 
on forever, and as we turn from the dead to the living 
can only say what Cicero said of his friend Scipio, 
"No evil has happened to him; if to any, it has hap- 
pened to us who have lost him. But to be too greatly 
grieved by our own loss is the part of one loving, not 
his friends, but himself. ' ' 



RUFUS KING 

Brethren of the Bar: 

Perhaps no oue of our number has passed through 
the gate of death crowned with more honorable years 
than Rufus King. 

The curious observer, fond of tracing resemblances, 
might fancy that he was not unlike the received image 
of those who lingered about the Academy, while his 
colloquial powers might recall Socrates again as he 
is pictured by the affectionate Xenophon "handling 
all who conversed with him just as he pleased." There 
was, too, something of that antique simplicity that 
would have followed the wise man of Athens, barefoot 
in the Ilissus. Indeed, his image recalls that old elegy 
on Sir Philip Sidney: 

"A sweet, attractive kind of grace, 
A full assurance given by looks; 
Continued comfort in a face 

The lineament of Gospel books. 
For sure that count 'nance cannot lie 
Whose thoughts are written in the eye." 

He spoke, too, as he conversed— with the same pith 
and humor and with the same facility. But his facility 
did not tempt him. He was capable of fised and con^- 
tinuous aiDplication of his mind to the examination 
and analysis of whatever question he took in hand. 

Delivered at the Meeting of the Bar of Hamilton County, 
Ohio, April 7, 1891. 

[248] 



Bufus King 249 

These faculties were all streng-thened and sharpened 
by varied reading and acquirement, and by habits of 
careful study and reflection. If not always eloquent, 
he was alwaj'S instructive. He was an excellent talker 
—an excellent public as well as private or social 
talker. If he had not the highest order of what, in 
poi)ular phrase, is called genius, he had more solid 
common sense than any man of genius, in that he was 
a master of its practical use. He spoke as a thought- 
ful and conscientious man from the convictions of his 
own judgnnent. His opinions commanded respect and 
deference, and carried with them a corresponding 
weight and influence. His intelligent and independent 
judgment and his strong, practical good sense were al- 
ways manifest. He believed that there is no vanity 
in true philosophy, and that the egotism of man must 
die away just so far as he beholds the glory of God. 
Like Moses, that egotism removes its shoes from off 
its feet as it approaches holy ground. He had that 
everlasting faith which believes that the Paradise were 
nothing if Christian philosophy should withdraw its 
doctrine of immortal life, and that Beatrice were only 
an imagination without that definition of virtue gen- 
eralized on the plains of Palestine. 

His spirit never stooped to littleness or meanness 
of action. He spent many hours with the monarchs of 
thought and gathered much of that dignity which it is 
said the Persian youth acquired from being educated 
in the palace of the king. He not only rejoiced in the 
sparkling mists and crests of the ocean but contem- 
plated with awful awe the infinity of waters beneath. 
He wished to know the cause of things and insisted that 
Derzhavin could never have written his sublime hymn 



250 Orations and Historical Addresses 

bad not the researches of Galileo and Newton taught 
him to say: 

"Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround, 
Upheld by Thee, by Thee inspired with breath. 
Thou the beginning with the end has bound, 
And beautifully mingled life with death." 

The association of Rufus King with the schools of 
the children of the people gave them a high character 
which is still a cherished tradition and a wholesome 
influence. Charles McMicken gave to the city of Cin- 
cinnati a munificent endowment for the purposes of 
higher education. Rufus ffing commenced where 
Charles McMicken stopped. He thought that this 
populous city, with its wealth and substantial growi;h, 
with its libraries and halls of music and art, with its 
financial honor untouched amidst commercial disaster, 
with its manufactories of steel and brass and iron and 
wood, should give a splendid patronage to learning. 
He reasoned with the younger Pliny, who, in a letter 
to a friend, said that it was the work of patriotism, 
and that nothing could be more acceptable to the coun- 
try, than to have the young men receive their educa- 
tion where they receive their birth, and to be accus- 
tomed from their infancy to inhabit and atfect their 
native soil. 

Rufus King prepared the Act upon which the Uni- 
versity of Cincinnati is founded. He was the first 
chairman of the board of directors and continued in 
that position until his resignation in 1878. He con- 
tended that the University is but practically a part of 
the educational system of Cincinnati, and that an op- 
portunity should be offered in the spirit of the Mc- 
Micken trust for instruction in all the higher branches 



Rufus King 251 

of knowledge to the same extent that instniction is 
now given in any of the secular colleges or universities 
of the highest grade in the land. It cannot be asserted 
that the University has yet realized eveiy expectation 
of its founders, but it can be successfully maintained 
that it has accomplished much in the cause of higher 
education. 

He realized, too, that Cincinnati was a great manu- 
facturing center and that there were many skilled 
workmen in her manufactories; that there were calls 
from every direction for renewed activity and a better 
development of her resources for supplying articles 
of beauty and utility ; that every succeeding year would 
mark a higher degree of taste and design as well as 
skill in the finish of her workshops ; that no surer way 
presented itself for securing this taste in design and 
skill in finish than a School of Design; that the object 
of such instruction was not alone intended for the mere 
sake of an accomplishment so much as for the subse- 
quent application in all operative forms. He believed 
in affording facilities to the youth of Cincinnati in 
the direction of a culture which would not only enrich 
the city of their birth, but which would bestow on their 
country an art in harmony with its advanced civiliza- 
tion. 

The Art Museum which crowns the summit of our 
hills, like the majestic Parthenon on the Acropolis, is 
largely the result of the patient thought and work of 
Eufus King in the original School of Art and Design 
in this city. 

Nor was Rufus King less devoted to the state. He 
was a member of the third convention which assembled 
at Columbus, May 13, 1873, to revise, alter or amend 
the constitution of the state. He rendered important 



252 Orations and Historical Addresses 

service as a member of the judicial department from 
the first congressional district, and though not partici- 
pating at length in the discussions of that body his 
long and successful professional life gave him great 
advantage in matters relating to our judicial system. 
On January 27, 1874, he was elected to succeed Mor- 
rison R. Waite, who had been appointed Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, as the 
Ijresiding officer of that body. He was prompt, clear 
and impartial in his rulings and his eminent fitness 
for the place was soon recognized by every delegate 
in the convention. 

The relations between Mr. King and myself, if I 
may be permitted a personal word, growing out of our 
association in the university board and as members of 
the constitutional convention were of the most cordial 
character. There was an abiding attachment that con- 
tinued to the end. His home life was delightful. He 
worshipped his household gods. The sweetest incense 
daily arose from his domestic altar. In the social 
gatherings at his home during the sitting of the con- 
vention in this city there was much said that would 
have entertained Sydney Smith who would have been 
a welcome guest at the table of our genial host and 
friend. 

Rufus King passed the allotted period of human 
life; yet to his latest years he exhibited the prints 
of a mind well disciplined and well furnished with the 
rich stores of a long experience. It could well be 
said of him as it was said of the yoimger Adams that 
"No excesses of a profligate youth, no \'iees of middle 
life had shattered and hurried to a premature dissolu- 
tion the body in which his incorruptible spirit resided. 
Nothing in his habits of life interrupted with nature 



Rufus King 253 

to whose gentle influeuce it was left to destroy gradually 
and to restore in a good old age to its parent dust the 
perishable part of our friend. The law of mortality 
which knows no exceptions among the passing genera- 
tions of our race, was executed in his case with as much 
tenderness and reserve, so to speak, as is ever per- 
mitted by Providence." 

Lord Mansfield believed that the true philosophy of 
this life consisted in an honest endeavor and in the 
acquisition of honorable fame. Eufus King made an 
honest endeavor and acquired honorable fame. His 
ancestry entitled him to the title which comes of illus- 
trious lineage. He was the crowned citizen only be- 
cause he filled the whole measure of good citizenship. 
It is that conviction which makes the voice of regard 
and regret so universal in our city to-day. 

Let the name of Eufus King stand in the grand old 
sense a gentleman, courteous, genial, kindly, dignified, 
gracious, just to all, masterly in affairs, constant in 
good works, lofty in principle, safe in counsel, of abso- 
lute integrity. He bore a name that was stainless and 
he honored that name. 



THE DEFEAT OF MAJOR GENERAL AR- 
THUR ST. CLAIR 

It is said that for more than six hundred years after 
the battle of Mortgarten the Swiss peasantry gathered 
upon the field of battle to commemorate those who had 
fallen for freedom. We have assembled to-day in the 
same spirit to do honor to the gallant dead, who, one 
hundred years ago, gave their lives for their country 
on this fatal field, and amidst their hallowed ashes to 
pei^petuate the story of their unselfish patriotism. A 
great Republic, mighty in its perfect unity, guards 
with tender care the memory of every man, whether 
on land or on sea, who has lifted up his hand for his 
country and the glory of the flag. 

We here reverently do honor not only to the memory 
of the gallant Butler and those who fell with him on 
that day of dreadful disaster under St. Clair, but to 
those tried and patriotic men who followed Anthony 
Wayne and perished at last at the Fallen Timbers, 
and those hardy ])ioneers who protected the frontier 
before civil authority was established, and saved de- 
fenseless settlements from the tomahawk and scalping 
knife of the Indian. 

When George Washington, on the twenty-fifth day 
of November, 1758,— then in his twenty-sixth year,— 
planted the British flag on the deserted ruins of the 

Delivered upon the Centennial Anniversary of the Defeat 
of Major General Arthur St. Clair, on the Occasion of the 
Re-Interment of the Dead who fell in the Engagement, on 
the Battlefield at Port Recovery, Ohio, October 16, 1891. 

[254] 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 255 

fortress at the junction of the Monongahela and Alle- 
gheny rivers, the banners of England floated for the 
first time over the Ohio. This was the extreme western 
post of Bi'itish rule in North America, and from the 
gateway of tlie west there stretched toward the setting 
sun the solemn and mysterious forest. There was noth- 
ing but an endless space of shadowy woodland. The 
forests crowned the mountains from crest to river bed, 
and extended in melancholy wastes toward the distant 
Mississippi. It has been well expressed that the sun- 
light could not penetrate the roof-archway of murmur- 
ing leaves, while deep in its tangled de]iths lurked 
the red foe, hawk-eyed and wolf-hearted. Here and 
there were great prairies with copses of woodland, like 
islands in the sunny seas of tall, waving grass. In 
all that solitude there was no sound save that of the 
woodman's axe. 

The English had been driven from every cabin in 
the basin of the Ohio. France had her posts on each 
side of the Lakes, and at Detroit, Mackinaw, Kaskas- 
kia and New Orleans, and the claim of France to the 
valleys of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence seemed 
established by possession. The flag of the Bourbon 
dynasty which floated from the battlements of Quebec 
was the emblem of sovereignty over this vast territory. 

The victory of Wolfe over Montcalm on the Heights 
of Abraham, on September 9, 1759, decided whether 
the vast Central Valley of North America should bear 
throughout all coming time the impress of French or 
English civilization. The continent was saved from 
French domination, and the dying hero praised God 
for the victory over the French as his spirit escaped 
in the blaze of its glory. The historian says that 
night, silence, the rushing tide, veteran discipline, the 



256 Orations and Historical Addresses 

sure inspiration of genius, had been his allies; his 
battlefield, high over the ocean-river, was the grandest 
theatre on earth for illustrious deeds; his victory, one 
of the most momentous in the annals of mankind, gave 
to the English tongue and the institutions of the Ger- 
manic race the unexplored and seemingly infinite West 
and North. He crowded into a few hours actions that 
would have given lustre to length of life; and filling 
his day with greatness, completed it before its noon. 

The Northwestern Territory, after the conquest of 
the French possessions in North America by Great Brit- 
ain, was ceded to Great Britain by France by the 
Treaty of Paris in 1763. By an act of Parliament of 
Great Britain passed in 1774, the whole of the North- 
western Territory was annexed to and made a part 
of the Province of Quebec, as established by the Eoyal 
Proclamation of October, 1763, and by the Treaty of 
Peace, signed at Paris, September 3, 1783, the claim 
of the English Monarch to the Northwestern Territory 
was ceded to the United States. The title claimed by 
Virginia, Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut 
was vested in the United States by the several deeds 
of cession. 

Congress now proceeded to perfect its title to the 
soil and jurisdiction by negotiation with the Indian 
tribes— the original owners and rightful proprietors— 
notwithstanding charters and grants and treaties of 
peace. The Indian title to a large jaart of the terri- 
tory within the limits of the state of Ohio having been 
extinguished, it became necessary for congress to pro- 
vide a form of government for the territory northwest 
of the Ohio river. This led to the adoption of the or- 
dinance of 1787. 

Arthur St. Clair, an officer in the old French war, a 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 257 

Major-general in the amiy of the revolution and presi- 
dent of the continental congress, was appointed gov- 
ernor of the Northwestern Territory in 1788, with Win- 
throp Sergeant as secretary, who also acted as chief 
magistrate in the absence of the governor. When St. 
Clair came to the territory in July, 1788, the tribes on 
the Wabash were decidedly hostile. They continued 
to invade the Kentucky settlements, while George 
Eogers Clark, at the head of the Kentucky volunteers, 
in return, destroyed their villages and waged a relent- 
less warfare against them. Immigration was retarded 
by the fear of the tomahawk and scalping knife. 

At the close of the Revolution the "regular army" 
had been reduced to less than seven hundred men, and 
no officer was retained above the rank of captain. This 
force was soon after reduced to twenty-five men to 
guard the mighty stores at Pittsburg, and fifty-five men 
to perform military duty at West Point and other 
magazines. 

It was estimated that all the tribes in the territory 
at this time numbered twenty thousand souls. They 
were continually inflamed by British emissaries and 
agents and a feeling of hostility enkindled. These 
emissaries and agents made their headquarters at the 
frontier forts which had not been given up by Great 
Britain according to the terms of the treaty with the 
United States. The military force of the territory 
consisted of about six hundred men under the command 
of General Harmar who had been appointed a Briga- 
dier-general on the thirty-first day of July, 1787. 

In the early part of 1789, Governor St. Clair held 
a council at Fort Harmar, at the mouth of the Mus- 
kingmn, with the chiefs and sachems of the six nations, 
and with the representatives of the Indian tribes from 

17 



258 Orations and Historical Addresses 

the Mohawk Valley to the Wabash, when old agree- 
ments were confirmed and boundaries established. 
Many of the tribes refused to acknowledge the treaty 
as binding, and within a short period after the council 
at Fort Ilarniar bands of marauding Indians threat- 
ened the frontiers of Virginia and Kentucky. 

It became evident that permanent peace with the 
Indians was an impossibility. They waylaid the boats, 
and wounded and plundered the immigrants all along 
the river from Pittsburgh to the Falls of the Ohio. 
General Harmar endeavored to chastise them, but his 
expedition was a disaster, and his command was de- 
feated at the Maumee Ford in October, 1790. 

The Federal Government proclaimed that the occu- 
pation of the territory meant peace and friendship and 
not war and bloodshed. These appeals were only an- 
swered by renewed dei)redations on the part of the 
Indians, who were largely instigated by the infamous 
Simon Girty— a renegade white man, at the mention 
of whose name for more than twenty years the women 
and children of the Ohio country turned pale. 

The tribes of the west under Little Turtle, chief 
of the Miamis, Blue Jacket, chief of the Shawnees, 
and Buck-ong-gee-a-helos, chief of the Delawares, now 
confederated to resist the whites and drive them, if 
possible, beyond the Ohio river, which the Indians re- 
garded as the boundary of their territory. Corn- 
planter, a famous chief, at the table of General Wayne, 
at Legionville, in 1793, said, "My mind is upon that 
river;" pointing to the Ohio, "may that water ever 
continue to run and remain the boundary of lasting 
peace between the Americans and Indians on the op- 
posite side." 

The expeditions of Harmar and Scott and Wilkin- 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 259 

son wore directed against the Miamis and Shawuees, 
while the hurning of their towns, the destniction of 
their cornfields and the captivity of their women and 
children only seemed to exasperate them and aroused 
more desperate efforts to defend their liunting grounds 
and to harass tlie invaders. In the meantime prepar- 
ations were going forward for the main expedition 
of St. ('lair, the purpose of which was to secure con- 
trol over the savages, by estahlisliing a chain of forts 
from the Ohio river to Lake J*h'ie, and especially by 
securing a strong position in the heart of the Miami 
country. The defeat of Hannar proved the necessity 
of some strong check upon the Indians of the North. 
West. 

Indeed the main object of the canipaigii of 1791 was 
to build a fort at the junction of the St. Mary and the 
St. Joseph's rivers whicli was to be connected by other 
intermediate stations witli Fort Washington and the 
Ohio. The importance of this position was recognized 
in a letter of General Knox, secretary of war, to St. 
Clair, dated September 12, 1790, and the secretary of 
war in his official report of St. Clair's defeat, dated 
December 26, 1791, says, "that the great ol)ject of the 
late campaign was to establish a strong military post 
at the Miami village— Maumee at the junction of the 
St. .Josei)h and the St. Mary." This object, too, was 
to be attained, if possible, even at tlie expense of a 
contest which otherwise he avoided. 

The secretary of war, under the authority and direc- 
tion of President Washington, issued full and com- 
plete instructions to General St. Clair for the conduct 
of the campaign. It was declared to be the policy of 
the general government to establish a just and liberal 
peace witli all the Indian Tribes within the limits and 



260 Orations and Historical Addresses 

in the vicinity of the territory of the United States; 
but if lenient measures should fail to bring the hostile 
Indians to a just sense of their situation, it would then 
be necessary to use all coercive measures to accomplish 
the result. 

General St. Clair was infoiTned that by an act of 
Congress, passed September 2, 1790, another regiment 
was to be raised and added to the military establish- 
ment and provision made for raising two thousand 
levies for the term of six months for the service of 
the frontiers. It was contemplated that the mass of 
regulars and volunteers should be recruited and ren- 
dezvous at Fort Washington by the tenth of July fol- 
lowing, so that there would be a force of three thousand 
*' effectives," at least, besides leaving small garrisons 
on the Ohio, for the main expedition. 

In order to prevent the Indians from spreading 
themselves along the line of the frontiers, in the event 
of the refusal of peace, Brigadier-general Charles 
Scott of Kentucky, was authorized to make an expedi- 
tion against the Wea or Oniatenon towns, with mounted 
volunteers, or militia from Kentucky, not exceeding 
the number of seven hundred and fifty, officers in- 
cluded. 

In his advance to the Miami Village, St. Clair was 
directed to establish such posts of communication with 
Fort Washington on the Ohio as should be deemed 
proper, while the post at the confluence of the St. 
Mary and the St. Joseph was intended for the purpose 
of awing and curbing the Indians in tliat quarter, and 
as the only preventive of future hostilities. It was 
necessary that it should be made secure against all 
attempts and insults of the Indians. The garrison 
to be stationed there was not onlv to be sufficient for 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 261 

the defense of the place, biat always to afford a detach- 
ment of five or six hundred men, either to chastise any 
of the Wabash or other hostile Indians, or to secure 
any convoy of ijrovisions. 

It was left to the discretion of the commanding gen- 
eral to employ, if attainable, any Indians of the Six 
Nations, and the Chickasaws or other southern nations, 
with the suggestion that probably the employment of 
about fifty of each, under the direction of some dis- 
creet or able chief, might be advantageous. There was 
a caution that they ought not to be assembled before 
the line of march was taken up, for the reason that 
they soon become tired and would not be detained. 

The secretary of war presumed that disciplined 
valor would triumph over the undisciplined Indian. 
In that event the Indians would sue for peace, and the 
dignity of the United States government required that 
the terms should be liberal. In order to avoid future 
war it was thought ])roper to make the Wabash, and 
thence over to the Miami— the Maumee— and down 
the same to its mouth at Lake Erie, the boundary, 
except so far as the same might relate to the Wyaudots 
and the Delawares, on the supposition of their con- 
tinuing faithful to their treaties. But if these tribes 
should join in war against the United States they 
should be removed beyond this boundary. 

There was also discretion given to General St. Clair 
to extend the boundan," from the mouth of the river 
Au Pause of the Wabash in a due west line to the Mis- 
sissi])pi, since but few Indians, beside the Kickapoos, 
would be affected by such line, but there was an admo- 
nition that the whole matter should be tenderly man- 
aged. The policy of the United States dictated peace 



262 Orations and Historical Addresses 

■with the Indians, for peace was of more value than 
millions of uncultivated acres. 

It was thought possible that the establishment of a 
post at the Miami Village might be regarded by the 
British officers on the frontier as a circumstance of 
jealousy. It was suggested, therefore, that such inti- 
mations should be made at the proper time, as would 
remove all such dispositions. It was the judgment of 
the secretary of war that such intimations should 
rather follow than precede the possession of the post. 

It is interesting— after the lapse of one hundred 
years— to know the feeling entertained by the Federal 
Government toward Great Britain in the campaign of 
the Northwestern Territory. Within twenty-one years 
after the defeat of St. Clair on this fatal field there 
was a formal declaration of war between the United 
States and Great Britain, and within twenty-one years 
General Harrison heard the thunder of Perry's guns 
as they proclaimed that the American arms had undis- 
puted possession of Lake Erie. 

In the very instructions to which we have alluded, 
it was declared that it was neither the inclination, nor 
the interest, of the United States to enter into a con- 
test with Great Britain, and that every measure tend- 
ing to any discussion or altercation should be pre- 
vented. General Knox said, "The delicate situation, 
therefore, of affairs, may render it improper at pres- 
ent, to make any naval arrangements upon Lake Erie. 
After you shall have effected all the injury to the 
hostile Indians of which your force may be capable, 
and after having established the posts and garrisons 
at the Miami Village and its communications, and 
placing the same under the orders of an officer worthy 



The Defeat of Major General St. I 'lair 263 

of such high trust, you will return to Fort Wasliingtou 
on the Ohio." 

"It is proper to observe," continued the secretary 
of war, "that certain jealousies have existed among 
the peojile of the frontiers relative to a supposed in- 
terference between their interest, and those of the 
marine states ; that these jealousies are ill founded 
with respect to the present government is obvious. The 
United States embrace, with equal care, all jjarts of 
the Union, and, in the present case, are making ex- 
pensive arrangements for the protection of the fron- 
tier, and iiartly in the modes, too, which appear to be 
highly favored bj- the Kentucky people. The high 
station you fill of commander-in-chief of the troops 
and governor of the Northwestern Territory, will af- 
ford you pregnant opportunities to impress the fron- 
tier citizen of the entire good disposition of the gen- 
eral government toward them in all reasonable things, 
and you will render acceptable service by cordially em- 
bracing all such opportunites. " 

General St. Clair proceeded to organize his army 
under these instructions. He was in Pittslmrg in the 
following April, toward which point horses and stores 
and ammunition were going forward. On the fifteenth 
of May, St. Clair reached Fort Washington (now Cin- 
cinnati), and at that time the United States troops 
in the west amounted to but two hundred and sixty- 
four non-commissioned officers and privates who were 
fit for duty. On the fifteenth of July, the first regi- 
ment, containing two hundred and ninety-nine men 
reached Fort Washington. 

General Richard Butler— who fell in the engagement, 
and for whom Butler county was named— was ap- 
pointed second in command, and during the months of 



264 Orations and Historical Addresses 

April and May was engaged in obtaining recruits, but 
when obtained there was no money to pay them, nor 
to provide stores for them. There was great ineffi- 
ciency in the quartermaster's department. Tents, 
pack saddles, kettles, knapsacks and cartridge boxes 
were all deficient, both in quantity and quality. The 
powder was poor or injured, the arms and accoutre- 
ments out of repair, and not even proper tools to mend 
them. Of six hundred and sixty-five stands of arms at 
Fort Washington, designed by St. Clair for the militia, 
scarcely any were in order; and with two traveling 
forges furaished by the quartermaster, there were no 
anvils. The troops gathered slowly at Fort Wash- 
ington, and there were vexatious detentions at Pitts- 
burg and upon the river. Intemperance prevailed to 
a great extent. St. Clair then ordered the soldiers 
removed, now numbering two thousand men, to Lud- 
low Station, about six miles from the fort. 

The army continued here until September 17, 1791, 
when, being two thousand three hundred strong, moved 
forward to a point on the Great Miami river when 
Fort Hamilton was built, the first in the chain of 
fortresses. 

On the thirteenth of September, General St. Clair 
reconnoitered the country and selected the ground to 
erect another fort for the purpose of a deposit. Two 
hundred men were employed the following day, under 
direction of Major Ferguson, at the new fort. This 
was the second in the chain of fortifications and was 
called Fort Jefferson. The army took up the line of 
march on the morning of the twenty-fourth and pur- 
sued an old Indian path leading north through a fine 
open woods, and, after advancing six miles encamped 



The Defeat of Major General St. CJair 265 

along the bank of a creek, with a large prairie on the 
left. This camp was afterwards called Fort Green- 
ville, by General Wayne, and marks the site of the 
town of Greenville. 

On the third day of November the army encamped 
on pleasant dry ground, on the bank of a creek about 
twenty yards wide, said to be the Pickaway Fork of 
the Omee, but known since to be a branch of the Wa- 
bash. This was ninety-eight miles from Fort Wash- 
ington. It was later than usual when the army reached 
the ground that evening, and the fatigue of the men 
prevented the general from having some works of 
defense immediately erected. Major Ferguson, com- 
manding officer of the artillery was sent for, and a 
plan agreed upon for work to commence early the next 
morning. Indeed it was the intention of St. Clair to 
leave the hea\'7 baggage at the place and move on 
with the army to the Miami Village. The high dry 
ground was barely sufficient to encamp the army, so 
that the lines were contracted. The front line was 
parallel with the creek, which was about twenty yards 
wide. There was low wet ground on both flanks, and 
along most of the rear. The militia advanced across 
the creek, about three hundred yards. The frequent 
firing of the sentinels through the night had disturbed 
the camp, and excited some concern among the officers, 
while guards had reported the Indians skulking about 
in considerable numbers. At ten o'clock at night Gen- 
eral Butler, who commanded the right wing, was di- 
rected to send out an intelligent officer and party for 
information. There was much bitter controversy on 
this subject afterwards. An aide-de-camp to General 
St. Clair states that he saw Captain Slough, with two 
subalterns and thirty men parade at General Butler's 



266 Orations and Historical Addresses 

tent for that purpose, and heard General Butler give 
Captain Slough ver}' particular orders how to proceed. 
The aide-de-camp, with two or three officers, remained 
with General Butler until a late hour, and then re- 
turned to the commander-in-cliief, who was unable to 
be up, and whose tent was at some distance on the left. 
General St. Clair had been indisijosed for some days 
past, with what at times appeared to be "a billions 
colic, sometimes a rheumatic asthma, and at other 
times symptoms of the gout." 

In the Military Journal of Major Ebenezer Denny, 
an officer in the Revolutionary and Indian Wars, and 
an aide-de-camp to General St. Clair, piablislied by the 
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, will be found, per- 
haps, the best account of the engagement itself. 

"A light fall of snow lay upon the ground — so light 
that it appeared like hoar frost. On a piece of rising 
ground, timbered with oak, ash and hickory, the en- 
campment was spread with a fordable stream in front. 
The army lay in two lines, seventy yards apart, with 
four pieces of cannon in the centre of each. Across 
the stream, and beyond a rich bottom land three hun- 
dred yards in width, was an elevated plain, covered 
with an open front of stately trees. There the militia, 
three hundred and fifty independent, half-insubordinate 
men, under Lieutenant Colonel Oldham, of Kentucky, 
were encamped. 

"The troops paraded on the morning of the fourth 
of November, 1791, at the usual time. They had been 
dismissed from the lines but a few minutes, and the 
sun had hardly risen, when the woods in front re- 
sounded with the fire and yells of the savages. The 
volunteers who were but three hundred yards in front, 
had scarcely time to return a shot before they fled into 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 267 

the camp of the enemy. The troops were under arms 
in an instant, and a brisk fire from the front line met 
the enemy. The Indians from the front filed off to 
the right and left and completely surrounded the camp, 
and, as a result, cut off nearly all the guards ami ap- 
proaches close to the lines. The savages advanced 
from one tree, log, or stump to another under cover 
of the smoke of the g-uns of the advancing army. The 
artillery and musketry made a tremendous noise, but 
did little execution. The Indians braved everything, 
and when the aniiy of St. Clair was encompassed, they 
kept up a constant fire, whicli told with fatal effect, al- 
though scarcely heard. The left flank, probably from 
the nature of the ground, gave way first. The enemy 
got possession of that part of the encampment, but 
were soon repulsed, because the ground was very open 
and exposed. 

"General St. Clair was engaged at that time toward 
the right. He led, in person, the party that drove the 
enemy and regained tlie ground on the left. 

"The battalions in the rear charged several times 
and forced the enemy from the shelter, but the Indians 
always turned and fired upon their backs. The sav- 
ages feared nothing from the Federal troops. They 
disappeared from the reach of the bayonet and then 
appeared as they pleased. Thej' were visible only 
when raised by a charge. The ground was literally 
covered with the dead and dying. The wounded were 
taken to the centre where it was thought most safe, 
and where a great many had crowded together after 
they had quitted the posts. The general, with other 
officers, endeavored to rally these men, and twice they 
were taken out to the lines. The officers seemed to be 



268 Orations and Historical Addresses 

singled out, and a great pi'oi^ortion fell or retired from 
wounds early in the action. 

"The men, being thus left with few ofiBcers, became 
fearful, and, despairing of success, gave up the battle. 
To save themselves they abandoned their ground, and 
crowded in toward the centre of the field. They seemed 
perfectly ungovernable, and no effort could again place 
them in order for an attack. 

' ' The Indians at length secured the artillery, but not 
until the oflScers were all killed, save one, and that 
officer badly wounded. The men were almost all cut 
off, and the pieces spiked. As the lines of St. Clair's 
army were gradually deserted the lines of the Indians 
were contracted. The shots then centered, and with 
deliberate aim the execution was fearful. There was, 
too, a cross-fire, and officers and men fell in every di- 
rection. The distress and cries of the wounded were 
fearful. A few minutes later and a retreat would have 
been impossible. The only hope was that the savages 
would be so taken up with the camp as not to follow 
the retreating army. Delay was death. There was 
no opportunity for preparation. Numbers of brave 
men must be left on the field as a sacrifice. There 
was no alternative but retreat. It was after nine 
o'clock when repeated orders had been given to re- 
treat. The action had continued between two and three 
hours. Both officers and men were incapable of doing 
anything. No one was aroused to action until a re- 
treat was ordered. Then a few officers advanced to 
the front and the men followed. The enemy then 
temporarily gave way because there was no suspicion 
of the retreat. The stoutest and most active now took 
lead, and those who were foremost in breaking the 
lines of the enemv were soon left in the rear. 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 269 

"When the day was lost one of the pack-horses was 
procured for General St. Clair. The general delayed 
to see the rear. This movement was soon discovered 
by the enemy, and the Indians followed though for not 
more than four or five miles. They soon turned to 
share the spoils of the battlefield. Soon after the 
firing ceased an order was given to an officer to gain 
the front and, if possible, to cause a halt that the rear 
might reach the army. A short halt was caused, but 
the men grew impatient and would move forward. By 
this time the remainder of the army was somewhat 
compact, but in the most miserable and defenseless 
state. The wounded left their arms on the field, and 
one half the others threw them away on the retreat. 
The road for miles was covered with fire-locks, car- 
tridge boxes and regimentals. It was most fortunate 
that the pursuit was discontinued for a single Indian 
might have followed with safety on either flank. Such 
a panic had seized the men that they were ungovern- 
able. 

"In the afternoon a detachment of the first regi- 
ment met the retreating army. This regiment, the only 
complete and best disciplined portion of the army, had 
been ordered back upon the road the thirty-first of 
October. They were thirty miles from the battle 
ground when they heard distinctly the firing of the 
cannon, were hastening forward and had marched 
about nine miles, when met by some of the militia who 
informed Major Hamtramck, the commanding officer, 
that the army was totally destroyed. The major 
judged it best to send a subaltern to obtain some knowl- 
edge of the situation, and to return himself with the 
regiment to Fort Jefferson, eight miles back, and to 
secure at all events that post. Stragglers continued 



270 Orations and Historical Addresses 

to come in for hours after the main army had reached 
the fort. 

"The remnant of the aiTny, with the first regiment, 
was now at Fort Jefferson, twenty-nine miles from the 
field of action, without provisions, and the former with- 
out having eaten anything for twenty-four hours. A 
convoy was known to be upon the road, and within a 
day's march. The general determined to move with 
the first regiment and all the levies able to march. 
Those of the wounded and others unable to go on, were 
lodged as comfortably as possible within the fort. The 
army set out a little after ten o'clock that night and 
reached Fort Hamilton on the afternoon of the sixth, 
the general having reached there in the morning. On 
the afternoon of the eighth the army reached Fort 
Washington. 

"St. Clair behaved gallantly during the dreadful 
scene. He was so tortured with gout that he could 
not mount a horse without assistance. He was not in 
uniform. His chief covering was a coarse crappo coat, 
and a three cocked hat from under which his white hair 
was seen streaming as he and Butler rode up and down 
the line during the battle. He had three horses killed 
under him. Eight balls passed through his clothes. 
He finally mounted a pack-horse, and upon this animal, 
which could with difficulty be spurred into a trot, he 
followed the retreat." 

That evening Adjutant-general Sargeant wrote in 
his diary "The troops have all been defeated and 
though it is impossible at this time to ascertain our 
loss yet there can be no manner of doubt that more 
than one-half the army are either killed or wounded." 

Atwater in his history of Ohio says that there were 
in the army, at the commencement of the action, about 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 271 

two hundred and fifty women, of whom fifty-six were 
killed in the battle, and the remainder were made 
prisoners by the enemy, except a small number who 
reached Fort Washington. 

The true causes of the disaster have been the sub- 
ject of much controversy. The committee of the 
House of Representatives, as stated in the American 
State Papers (Vol. XII, 38) exonerated St. Clair from 
all blame in relation to everything before and during 
the action. 

The real reasons were doubtless the surprise of the 
army and the consequent confusion and plight of the 
militia who were first attacked. The militia, as St. 
Clair says, were a quarter of a mile in advance of the 
main army, and beyond the creek; still further in ad- 
vance was Captain Slough, who, with a volunteer 
party of regulars sent to reconnoiter; and orders had 
been given to Colonel Oldham, who commanded the 
militia, to have the woods thorouglily examined by the 
scouts and patrols, as Indians were discovered hang- 
ing about the outskirts of the army. The want of dis- 
cipline and inexperience of the troops, doubtless, con- 
tributed to the result. The battle began at six o'clock 
in the morning and lasted until about half past nine. 
They were not overwhelmed, as St. Clair supposed, 
by superior numbers. The Indians according to the 
best accounts did not exceed one thousand warriors. 
They fought, however, with desperate valor, and at a 
great advantage from the nature of the ground and 
from the facilities the forest afforded for their favorite 
mode of attack. They were led, too, by the greatest 
chieftain of that age. It has been the received opinion 
that the leader of the confederated tribes on that fatal 
day was Little Turtle, the chief of the Miamis; but 



272 Orations and Historical Addresses 

from the family of that celebrated warrior and states- 
man, it is ascertained that Joseph Brandt (Stone's 
Brandt, II, p. 313) with one hundred and fifty Mohawk 
braves was present and commanded the warriors of 
the wilderness. Colonel John Johnston, long the In- 
dian agent, thinks that the number of the Indians 
could not have been less than two thousand men, but 
this estimate is not accepted as accurate. General 
Harmar not only refused to join the expedition, but 
the relations between St. Clair and Butler were not 
of the most cordial character. It is evident from the 
events connected with the campaign, as well as from 
his subsequent career as governor of the Northwestern 
Territory, that St. Clair was dictatorial in manner and 
spirit. 

The battle which took place here on that eventful 
day in November, 1791, seems to pale before the mighty 
achievements of the late civil war, when great armies 
were picked up on the banks of the Potomac and 
dropped on the banks of the Cumberland and the Ten- 
nessee, and when the shouts of more than a million 
of men, mingled with the roar of the Atlantic and 
Pacific as they passed onward in the ranks of war. 
The defeat of St. Clair was the most terrible reverse 
the American arms ever suffered from the Indians. 
Even the defeat of Braddock's army was less disas- 
trous. Braddock's army consisted of twelve hundred 
men and eighty-six officers, of whom seven hundred and 
fourteen men and sixty-three officers were killed and 
wounded. St. Clair's army consisted of fourteen hun- 
dred men and eighty-six officers, of whom thirty-seven 
officers and five hundred and ninety-three privates 
were killed and missing and thirty-one officers and two 
hundred and fifty-two privates wounded. It is true 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 273 

that wheu tlie army advanced from Fort Jefferson it 
numbered about two thousand men, but discharges and 
desertions reduced the effective strength on the day 
of action to only about fourteen hundred men. The 
second regiment had but one battalion with the army. 
It was well appointed, but inexperienced. The ofiScers 
and men, however, did their whole duty; they with 
the battalion of artillery, were nearly all cut off. 

Bancroft in speaking of Braddock's defeat says that 
the forest field of battle was left thickly strewn with 
the wounded and the dead. Never had there been such 
a harvest of scalps. As evening approached, the woods 
around Fort Du Quesne rang with the halloos of the 
red men; the constant firing of small arms, mingled 
with the peal of cannon from the fort. The next day 
the British artillery was brought in, and the Indian 
warriors, painting their skin a shining vermilion, with 
patches of black and brown and blue, gloried in the 
laced hats and bright apparel of the English officers. 
This language, but for the British artillery and the 
English officers, would be descrii^tive of the field. 

The people of the western counties of Pennsylvania 
and Virginia memorialized their governors for pro- 
tection. "In consequence of the late intelligence of 
the fate of the campaign to the westward," says a 
committee of the citizens of Pittsburg, "the inhabit- 
ants of the town of Pittsburg have convened and ap- 
pointed us a committee for the irarpose of addressing 
your excellency. The late disaster to the army must 
greatly affect the safety of this place. There can be 
no doubt but that the enemy will now come forward 
and with more spirit and greater confidence than they 
ever did before, for success will give confidence and 
secure allies." 

IS 



274 Orations and Historical Addresses 

"The alarmiiig intelligence lately received," said 
the people of the western portion of Virginia, * ' of the 
defeat of the army of the western country, fills our 
minds with dreadful fear and apprehension concern- 
ing the safety of our fellow citizens in the country we 
represent, and we confidently hope will be an excuse 
for the request we are compelled to make." 
evinced in behalf of the distressed frontier counties 
for the request we are compelled to make." 

"But the comparative losses of the two engage- 
ments," says a writer in the Western Annals, "repre- 
sents very inadequately the crushing effect of the de- 
feat of St. Clair. An unprotected frontier of a thou- 
sand miles, from the Allegheny to the Mississippi, was 
at once thrown open to the attack of the infuriated and 
victorious savages. The peace enjoyed for the several 
preceding years had wrought a great change in the 
western settlements. The Indian hunters of the Revo- 
lutionary war had laid aside their arms and their 
habits and devoted themselves to the cultivation of 
the soil ; the block houses and forts around which thQ 
first settlers had gathered were abandoned, and cabins, 
clearings and hamlets instead were scattered in ex- 
posed situations all along the border. Everywhere 
the settlers, unprotected and unprepared, were expect- 
ing in terror the approach of the savages, and every- 
where abandoning their homes, or awaiting in help- 
less despair the burnings, massacres and cruelties of 
Indian wars." 

General Harmar was at Fort Washington in Sep- 
tember, 1791, to solicit a court of inquiry to examine 
into misconduct in the last campaign. The court was 
ordered— with General Richard Butler as president— 
and a rejaort was made highly honorable to General 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 2Tci 

Harinar. He was then determined to quit the service 
and positively refused to take any command in the 
campaign of St. Clair. He conversed frequently and 
freely with a few of his friends on the probable re- 
sults of the campaign, and predicted defeat. He sus- 
pected a disposition in Major Denny to resign but dis- 
couraged the idea. "You must" said he, "go in the 
campaign; some will escajie, and you may be among 
the number." It was a matter of astonishment to 
General Harmar, who had experience in fighting the 
Indians, that General St. Clair, who had an excellent 
military reputation, should think of hazarding that 
reputation and even his life, and the lives of so many 
others, with an army so completely undisciplined, and 
with officers so totally imacquainted with Indian war- 
fare, and with not a department sufficiently prepared. 
There, too, was an absolute ignorance of the collected 
force and situation of the enemy. Indeed the scouts 
who left camp on the twenty-ninth of October under 
command of Captain Sparks, and composed chiefly of 
friendly Indians, missed the enemy altogether and knew 
nothing of the battle, and but for an Indian runner 
whom they met after the engagement would probably 
have all been captured. It was unfortunate, too, that 
both the general officers had been disabled by sickness. 
The i>opular clamor against St. Clair was loud and 
deep. He had suffered a great reverse and was, there- 
fore, accused by the public voice of great incompe- 
tence. He asked from the jiresident the appointment 
of a court of inquiry, but the request was denied be- 
cause there were not officers enough in the service 
of the proper rank to constitute such a court. He 
then offered to resign his commission on condition 
that his conduct should be investigated, but the ex- 



276 Orations and Historical Addresses 

igencies of the service would not permit of the delay, 
and his request was again refused. 

Governor St. Clair continued to exercise the office 
of governor of the territory until 1802, and to the 
last, says Marshall in his life of Washington, retained 
the undiminished esteem and good opinion of Wash- 
ington. 

In a letter to Jonathan Dayton from John Cleves 
Sjiimies, dated North Bend, August 15, 1791, the 
writer says that "nothing is known when the present 
army is to be put in motion. They are encamped at 
the Ludlow Station, five miles from Fort Washington 
on account of better food for the cattle, of which they 
have nearly one thousand head from Kentucky. Many 
and important are the preparations to be made previ- 
ous to their general movement. Not long since I made 
General St. Clair a tender of my services on the ex- 
pedition. He replied, *I am very willing that you 
should go, sir, but, by God, you do not go as a Dutch 
deputy.' I answered that I did not recollect the an- 
ecdote of the Dutch deputation to which he alluded. 
His excellency replied: 'The Dutch, in some of the 
wars, sent forth an army under the command of a 
general ofiScer, but appointed a deputation of burghers 
to attend the general to the war, that they might advise 
him when to fight and when to decline.' I inferred 
from this that I should be considered by him rather 
as a spy upon his conduct than otherwise, and there- 
fore do not intend to go, though I should have been 
happy to have seen the country between this and San- 
dusky." 

It is needless to add that had Judge Spumes accom- 
panied the army his opportunity for observing the 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 277 

couutry in the neighborhood of Fort Recover}' would 
have been too limited for any practical use. 

"In May, 1815," says a writer, "four of us called 
on Arthur St. Clair on the top of Chestnut Eidge, 
eastwardly eight or ten miles from Greensburg, West- 
moreland county, Pennsylvania. We were traveling 
on horseback to Connecticut, and being informed that 
he kept tavern, we decided to call for entertainment 
for the night. We alighted at his residence late in the 
afternoon, and on entering the log house we saw an 
elderly, neat gentleman, dressed in black broadcloth, 
with stockings and small clothes, shining shoes, whose 
straps were secured by large silver buckles, his hair 
clubbed and powdered. On closing his book he arose 
and received us most kindly and gracefully, and point- 
ing us to chairs he asked us to be seated. On being 
asked for entertainment, he said: 'Gentlemen, I per- 
ceive you are traveling, and though I should be grati- 
fied by your custom, it is my duty to inform you I 
have no hay or grain. I have good pasture, but if hay 
and grain are essential, I can not furnish them.' 

' ' There stood before us a major-general of the Revo- 
lution—the friend and confidant of Washington— late 
governor of the territory northwest of the Ohio river, 
one of nature's noblemen, of high, dignified bearing, 
whom misfortune, nor the ingratitude of his country, 
nor poverty, could break down nor deprive of self- 
respect; keeping a tavern but could not furnish a 
bushel of oats nor a loch of hay. We were moved prin- 
cipally to call upon him to hear him converse about 
the men of the Revolution and of the Northwestern 
Territory, and our regret that he could not entertain 
us was greatly increased by hearing him converse 
about an hour. The large estate which he sacrificed 



278 Orations and Historical Addresses 

for the cause of the Revolution was within a short 
distance of the top of Chestnut Ridge— if not in sight." 
He died on the thirty-first day of August, 1818, near 
Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in the eighty-fourth year 
of his age. His best eulogist speaks of him as ah ene- 
my to the Indian tribes in war, but more frequently 
their friend and counsellor in peace. 

In January, 1792, General James Wilkinson, who 
then commanded at Fort Washington, made a call for 
volunteers, to accompany an expedition to the scene 
of St. Clair's defeat, for the purpose of burying the 
dead. Ensign William Henry Harrison— aftei-wards 
president of the United States— was attached to one 
of the companies of the regular troops. The volun- 
teers numbered more than two hundred and fifty 
mounted men, and two hundred regular soldiers from 
Fort Washington. They began the march on the 
twenty-fifth day of January, 1792, from Fort Washing- 
ton, and afterwards completed the organization by 
electing Captain John S. Gano as major. They crossed 
the Big Miami on the ice, with horses and baggage, 
at Fort Hamilton, on the twenty-eighth day of Jan- 
uary. The general in command issued an order at 
Fort Jefferson abandoning one of the objects of the 
campaign, which was a demonstration against an Indian 
town on the Wabash, not far distant from the battle 
ground of St. Clair. The regular soldiers, all on foot, 
returned to Fort Washington. The expedition reached 
the scene of disaster at eleven o'clock, but for a long 
distance along the road and in the woods, the bodies 
of the slain could be seen, scalped, in many instances, 
and mutilated by the wild beasts. 

It is said that the body of General Richard Butler 
was recognized where the carnage had been the thick- 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 279 

est, and among a group of the slain. The bodies were 
gathered together, and in the solitude of the forest, 
and amidst the gloom of winter, were given a last 
resting plaee. 

It is not possible to call the list of the slain in any 
engagement. Many must be left to catch the tears 
of mothers, and wives, and sisters, shed in desolated 
homes and by vacated firesides. The officers who fell 
in the battle were Major-general Butler, second in com- 
mand; Major Ferguson, Captain Bradford, and Lieu- 
tenant Spear, of the artillery; Major Heart, Captains 
Phelon, Newman and Kirkwood, Lieutenants Warren 
and Ensign Cobb, of the second regiment; Captains 
Van Swearingen, Tibton and Price, Lieutenants Mc- 
Math and Boyd, Ensigns Wilson and Reaves, Brooks 
and Chase, Adjutant Burges and Doctor Grayson, of 
the first regiment of levies, Captains Cribbs, Piatt, 
Smith and Purdy, Lieutenants Kelso and Lukens, En- 
sign McMichle, Beatty and Purdy, and Adjutant An- 
derson of the second regiment of levies. Lieutenant 
Colonel Gibson of the Bayonets died of his wounds at 
Fort Jefferson; and the Lieutenant Colonel Oldham, 
Captain Lemon, Lieutenant Briggs and Ensign Mont- 
gomery of the Kentucky Militia. General William 
Darke, for whom Darke county was named, was lieuten- 
ant-colonel of the first regiment of levies and was 
wounded in the engagement. He died on the twentieth 
day of November, 1801. 

The death roll shows five hundred and ninety-three 
privates killed and missing in the engagement. They 
are dead on the field of honor. 

The national government is gathering together the 
remains of those who fell under the flag and rein- 
terring them in cemeteries with appropriate memorials 



280 Orations and Historical Addresses 

to commemorate their names and their deeds. A sa- 
cred duty to the dead of the battlefield will not have 
been discharged by the federal government until a 
stately shaft of magnificent proportions shall be 
erected, to tell not only of that eventful day in Novem- 
ber, but to teach the coming generations as well, by 
their example, when duty requires, to die for their 
country. 

We turn from the ashes of the heroic dead to con- 
template, with a supreme affection, the country for 
which they died. One hundred years have passed 
since that day of disaster for the whole Northwestern 
Territory. It has been a century crowned by the bless- 
ings of liberty and order and law. The gently flowing 
Wabash traverses almost a continent where the Eng- 
lish tongue is the language of Freedom, until its quiet 
waters mingle with the Gulf. The harvests are peace- 
fully gathered to their garners, and the songs of home 
are uninvaded by the cries and terrors of battle. The 
principle of civil and religious liberty upon which five 
great republics of the northwest have erected their la'u 
and constitution, is strong in the hearts of a people 
who breathed the inspiration of freedom from the 
very air of heaven, and whose soil was never cursed 
by the unrequited toil of the bondman. We may well 
have faith in the greatness and permanence of our 
political creations and in unbroken unity, prophecy, 
and unconquerable strength. 

Talleyrand characterizes the United States, in speak- 
ing to the Emperor Napoleon, as a giant without bones. 
If the diplomat were here to-day he would find the 
national sentiment stronger than at any period since 
the Revolution; nor will the pages of history show a 



The Defeat of Major General St. Clair 281 

more splendid example of self-sacrifice in vindication 
of national integrity than the late civil war. It is 
the crowning glory of the century, and a free people, 
Laving an abiding faith in the strength and permanency 
of their political institutions, may look forward with 
supreme confidence as they march onward under the 
guidance of Him who was with our fathers in the path 
to imperial greatness. 

*N0TE. — (From the Cincinnati (Daily) Enquirer. October 17, 
1891.) 

Ft. Recovery, 0., Oct. 16. — The grand centennial celebration ol 
the battle of St. Clair closed to-day, and the expectations of the 
Monumental Association have been realized fully. Great crowds 
of people have assembled each day to pay homage to the dead heroes. 

This morning dawned with a clear sky, seemingly the act of 
Providence to prepare a perfect day for the crowning event of the 
exercises. Fully fifteen thousand people assembled to-day on the 
old battle ground of Ft. Recovery to witness the sad rites of placing 
the remains of the dead heroes in their third and last resting place. 
It will be remembered that the bones of the old soldiers were dis- 
covered in a pit, where they had been placed by their comrades after 
the battle. The first skull was found by the late Judge Roop, by 
mere accident, after a rain which had washed them out to view. 
This was in June, 1851, and they lay in that state until October 
of the same year, when they were interred in a private cemetery 
amid grand ceremonies. They rested in their earthly abodes until 
a few days ago, when they were again taken up to prepare for their 
final resting place. It was to-day this rite was performed. The 
exercises this forenoon were: Speaking at the grounds and military 
parade, Colonel Bundy, of Cincinnati, being the principal orator. 

General J. P. C. Shanks, of Portland, Ind., delivered an interest- 
ing address relative to the defeat of Arthur St. Clair. At noon 
Judge Samuel F. Hunt, of Cincinnati. Senator Godfrey, of Celina, 
and Major Blackburn, of Cincinnati, arrived. The procession was 
then formed at the Christian Church, where the remains were lying 
In state. The Sidney Cornet Band headed the procession, playing 
a slow march, followed by the military company from Portland, 
Ind. The Sons of Veterans came next, followed by the G. A. R. Post 
of this city. Then came the catafalque on which the remains were 
placed, drawn by four horses. The Executive Board of the Monu- 
mental Association followed the catafalque and a procession of 
young ladles, representing the different States of the Union, brought 



282 Orations and Historical Addresses 

up the rear. The procession slowly marched from the church 
through the city to the park, where the grave had been prepared 
to receive the remains. Prayer was offered up by Rev. O. S. Green, 
after which General Shanks delivered the dedication address. Three 
salutes were fired by the military over the graves of the soldiers. 
The scene was an impressive one, and will be remembered by all 
who witnessed it. Amid the tolling of the church bells throughout 
the city the remains of the five hundred soldiers, together with those 
of General Butler, were consigned once more to the silent tomb, 
never to be again disturbed. The park is a most beautiful one, and 
was purchased by the city for the site of a monument, which will 
no doubt some day be erected. The monument will be placed direct- 
ly in the center of the park over the graves of the dead soldiers. 
The remains of General Butler were discovered and interred In 
1876, and a few years later his sword was found nearly on the same 
spot. His name and the crown of England were engraved upon it. 
The address of Judge Hunt this afternoon was listened to by ten 
thousand people. Thus closed an event of national importance. The 
fact that visitors were here from half the states in the Union showed 
what an interest has been taken in the event throughout the 
country. 



CHARLES McMICKEN 

The founder of the Smithsonian Institution, in his 
last will and testament, bequeathed all his property to 
the United States of America to found at Washington 
an institution for the increase and diffusion of knowl- 
edge among men. His life had been chiefly devoted 
to study and scientific investigation, and especially in 
the lines of geology, mineralogy, and chemistry. This 
love of science had inspired him with an ambition to 
peri^etuate his own name. He devoted his entire estate 
to the enlargement of human knowledge, and dedicated, 
two thirds of a century ago, a munificent private for- 
tune to the youthful Republic to be used for the bene- 
fit of mankind. 

In this bequest he used these significant words : * ' The 
best blood of England flows in my veins ; on my father's 
side I am a Northumberland, on my mother's I am 
related to kings; but this avails me not. My name 
shall live in the memory of man when the titles of 
the Northumberlands and the Percys are extinct and 
forgotten. ' ' 

James Smithson was wiser than most men, in that 
he anticipated the judgment of posterity. Already 
two generations of men rise up and call his memory 
blessed, while the endowment for unmeasured years 
will continue to build up an estate of thinkers and 

Delivered before the Citizens and Municipal Authorities 

of Cincinnati, and the Board of Trustees, Faculty, Students, 

and Alumni of the University, at Pike's Opera House, June 

8, 1892. 

[283] 



284 Orations and Historical Addresses 

scholars, of inventors and discoverers, in that realm 
of thought which contributes to the intellectual and 
moral life of human society. 

Charles McMickeu, in the same spirit, shared his 
fortune with mankind, and has left a legacy which has 
brought the means of acquiring a liberal education to 
the very homes of the young men and young women of 
his adopted city. There is something grand in that 
generosity which embraces all the higher needs of hu- 
manity. His name, too, will go down to the genera- 
tions as the benefactor of men, because, looking beyond 
self or the purpose of self, he laid the foundations of 
an institution of learning where, in the language of his 
will, "instruction should be taught in all the higher 
branches of knowledge, except denominational theol- 
ogy, the same as in any of the secular colleges or 
universities of the highest grade in the country. ' ' The 
giver of this endowment and the administrators of this 
trust have unostentatiously, silently, and almost with- 
out the knowledge of many built up an institution of 
learning which must always exercise a wide and last- 
ing influence in all the life and future of our society. 
It has effectually created an atmosphere of art and 
literature and science in this community. 

Charles McMicken was of Scotch ancestry. His 
grandfather brought two sons with him to this country 
as early as 1732, and settled on a tract of land of 
some seven or eight hundred acres in Bucks county, 
in the state of Pennsylvania. This land remained in 
the family for more than one hundred and fifty years. 

Charles McMicken was bom in Bucks county, Penn- 
sylvania, on the twenty-third day of November, 1782. 
He was early trained to habits of industry, and while 
not a scholar in the accepted sense of that term, yet 



Charles McMicken 285 

he gave no little attention to the pursuit of knowledge, 
and made some progress in civil engineering. Indeed, 
he was engaged in teaching school for some months. 
Hardly before he attained the age of twenty-one he 
set out on horseback to seek his fortune with the tide 
of emigration then crossing the Allegheny Mountains. 
From the crest of the mountains there stretched to 
the west only a vast, illimitable extent of sunless for- 
est, with scarcely a sound save that of the woodman's 
axe. He remained a short time at Chillicothe, then 
the capital of the state, and devoted his attention to 
sur\'eying, and reached Cincinnati in the spring of 
1803, with his horse and saddle and bridle and some 
means saved from his duties as surveyor. 

His first employment on reaching Cincinnati was 
that of clerk for John Smith, who, with Thomas Worth- 
ington, was the senator from Ohio in the Federal Con- 
gress from 1803 to 1808. He remained with Smith in 
the general merchandise business for a short time, 
when he loaded two flatboats with flour for New Or- 
leans. This was before Louisiana was acquired by 
the United States. The boats were tied up above New 
Orleans to save wharfage, while he went into the city 
to make sale and purchase necessary goods. On his 
return he found that his boats had sunk and only his 
horse was saved. His entire worldly possessions after 
the payment of his hands amounted to only three 
eleven-penny bits. 

Neither poverty nor misfortune discouraged his 
spirit. There were then eleven stores in New Orleans. 
He applied to nine for a situation, and at the tenth se- 
cured a ]iosition until the nephew of one of the firm 
should arrive from Baltimore. He had but one suit 
of clothing. There was no stipulated jirice for his 



286 Orations and Historical Addresses 

services. The nephew came at the end of six mouths, 
when his employers gave him at the rate of eighty 
dollars per month for his services and a suit of clothes. 
They also secured him a new situation at an increased 
salary. His industry and attention to business was 
such that he left New Orleans with ample credit to 
engage in business for himself. He went up the Mis- 
sissippi River to Bayou Sara. The town of New 
Valencia— now St. Francisville— was situated on the 
bluff, with rich cotton lands extending back from the 
river. Charles McMicken established himself there in 
the latter part of 1803, and engaged in shipping cotton 
and in the business of general merchandise until the 
year 1837. 

It is somewhat singular that his first investment in 
cotton, like the first investment in flour, should prove 
a most disastrous undertaking. His first shipment 
was consigned to James Clay, a brother of Henry Clay, 
of Kentucky, who was at that time a cotton factor in 
New Orleans. A few days after Clay failed and he 
lost all. After that he became his own' coimnission 
merchant, and so remained until 1837, when he re- 
turned to New Orleans. From the time he left Bayou 
Sara, in 1837, he was not engaged in any active pur- 
suits beyond the investment and the care of his prop- 
erty. 

His first purchase of real estate in Cincinnati was 
in 1835, at the northeast comer of Third and Main 
streets. He added to his estate from time to time by 
purchases in this city until it was estimated at more 
than one-half million of dollars. He purchased largely 
of lands in what is known as the Louisiana Purchase, 
and before that territory was acquired by the United 
States. He came here in 1835 and boarded for a time. 



Charles McMicken 287 

After that he uniformly left New Orleans in the month 
of March of each year and came to Cincinnati, where 
he remained until June. After spending the months 
of July and August at the eastern summer resorts 
he would return to Cincinnati, and then go to New 
Orleans in November for the winter months. 

The old McMicken homestead was built by John F. 
Keyes in 1819. This was purchased in the year 1840 
by Charles McMicken from the administrator of Lu- 
man Watson. His nephew, Andrew McMicken, resided 
there for many years, and he made this his home during 
the latter part of his life. This property was specially 
bequeathed to the city of Cincinnati in trust for educa- 
tional purposes, and was designated as the site for the 
academic buildings. 

Charles McMicken was a man of strong mind and 
remarkable memory. He was temperate in his habits 
and methodical in his business affairs. It is said that 
at the advanced age of seventy years he was accus- 
tomed to divert himself with cards which told distances 
in the planetary system, and that he would indicate 
results with mathematical precision. 

He was for a number of years a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and was uniform in his 
attendance on the ministry of the Word and the ordi- 
nances of religion. He was broad and catholic in his 
views, and, while decided in his own convictions, did 
not seek controversy with any one. He never married, 
but was surrounded by a large circle of relatives, to 
whom he was most considerate, and aided some in ob- 
taining a liberal education. He was self-reliant, pos- 
sessed of excellent business qualifications, and in his 
multiplied deeds of charity there was no ostentation. 
He was reserved in manner and expression, and it is 



288 Orations and Historical Addresses 

questionable whether any one ever knew anything 
about the details of his affairs or the cherished pur- 
pose of his life. He unfolded it just before his death 
for the first time to his intimate friend, the late Free- 
man G. Gary, formerly president of Farmers' College, 
with the remark that he had labored since early man- 
hood for its fulfillment. He had a commanding pres- 
ence, and to those who met him he seemed rather a 
figure of the olden time, standing not less than six 
feet in height, and weighing not less than two hundred 
and fifty-four pounds. 

Charles McMicken's death was caused by pneu- 
monia, which he contracted on the boat on the way 
from New Orleans to Cincinnati. It soon assumed a 
malignant form and threatened a fatal result. His 
mind was unclouded to the last, and he fully realized 
that his work on earth was finishbd. He made no men- 
tion of his worldly affairs during his entire illness, 
and finally went down to the grave on the thirtieth 
day of March, 1858, in the seventy-sixth year of his 
age, and with the sublime confidence which comes of 
the faithful discharge of duty. 

Nor were his sympathies a question of geography. 
In the year 1848 the American Colonization Society 
made an appeal in behalf of what was known as Free 
Labor Tropical Cultivation, which had for its object 
the purchase of a large extent of land on the coast of 
Africa. In April of the same year it was suggested 
in the press of this city that much good could be ac- 
complished by a liberal provision being made for the 
settlement of a colony. It was urged by the friends 
of the measure, who had in view the best interests of 
the colored people, that their emigration to the Re- 
public of Liberia would be a step in the direction of 



Charles McMicken 289 

relieving the oppressed and limiting the evils of hu- 
man servitude. It was thought by philanthropists that 
much good would come from devoting the greatest pos- 
sible extent of the soil of Africa to free labor. 

Charles McMicken, on a plan proposed by himself, 
ofifered sufiScient funds to pay for the necessary amount 
of land for such a colony. President Roberts of Liberia, 
on visiting the United States shortly after the plan 
of McMicken had been announced, gave it his decided 
approval. Ten thousand dollars was promptly re- 
mitted by Charles McMicken, in connection with Sam- 
uel Gurney of England, with which eight millions of 
acres were purchased for the purpose of a colony, 
known as Ohio in Africa. This purchase was express- 
ly devoted to the use and l>enefit of the colored people 
of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and on the consumma- 
tion of which, says the sketch from which many of these 
facts are taken, there commenced a new era in African 
colonization. 

This generous gift of Charles McMicken to the 
cause of humanity must be read and measured in the 
light of the conditions then existing. The freedman 
had not then become the free man; the serf 
had not become the citizen. This was long before 
the resurrection of liberty to the bondman, which was 
the resurrection of honor to America. This was long 
before Lincoln appealed to the considerate judgment 
of his countrymen and the gracious favor of the Al- 
mighty, and thus made his grave a new Mount Vernon 
in the prairies of the west. McMicken 's charity, too, 
had no horizon. There was room enough in the air 
for every wing that would fly; there was expanse 
enough on the ocean for every sail that would float. 
He soon afterwards gave to Farmers' College a be- 



290 Orations and Historical Addresses 

quest of ten thousand dollars to establish a chair in 
a young but growing institution. 

Lord Bacon, in his admirable letter of advice to 
Sir George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, 
when he became favorite to King James, as to how to 
govern himself in the station of Prime Minister, said 
to his patron and friend, "Colleges and schools of 
learning are to be cherished and encouraged, there to 
breed up a new stock to furnish the church and com- 
monwealth when the old stock is transplanted." 

Charles McMicken in this spirit gave to the city of 
Cincinnati a munificent endowment for the purposes 
of higher education. The quiet, systematic habits, and 
the persistent, managing industry of this man of busi- 
ness enabled him to perform a great stewardship. He 
knew but little of art and had made no discovery in 
science, and yet he gave great acquisitions of wealth to 
the advancement of knowledge and the cultivation of 
liberal pursuits. He thought so little of himself and 
so much of others that he consecrated a long life of 
saving by the sublime act of giving. He had the 
courage which prompts a man to do his duty fearlessly 
and to hold fast to his integrity. He sought to benefit 
the human race and believed that the confidence of men 
can alone be won by symi^athy and love. He insisted 
that there was no moral grandeur without character 
for its foundation. He discriminated against "de- 
nominational theolog}'" as a part of the course of in- 
struction in the institution he founded, but he none the 
less emphasized the religion of good deeds, of honesty 
of purpose, of sympathy for the unfortunate child of 
want, and declared, as the cherished purpose of his 
life, to found an institution of learning where duty to 
fellow-man should be taught as well as a knowledge of 



Charles McMicken 291 

duty to the Creator. Charles McMicken was for Ciu- 
cinnati what the Medici were for Florence; they en- 
nobled trade by making it the ally of philosophy, of 
eloquence, and of taste, and wealth was made to give 
a splendid patronage to learning. 

The last will and testament of Charles McMicken 
was executed on the twenty-second day of September, 
1S55, and duly proven and admitted to record in the 
probate court for Hamilton county, Ohio, on the tenth 
day of April, 1858. It contains thirty-nine sections, 
and after making provisions for the payment of sev- 
eral legacies and annuities to those united by blood, 
bequeaths to the city of Cincinnati and to its succes- 
sors all the residue of his real and personal property 
for the purpose of building, establishing, and main- 
taining two colleges, one for each of the sexes, em- 
bracing in extent a course of university education. The 
thirty-first section of the will contains the devise to 
the city of Cincinnati, in trust, for building, establish- 
ing, and maintaining two colleges, with directions as 
to sales, leases, investments, and as to certain charges 
on the devise. It is the spirit of the bequest, and was 
written by Charles McMicken himself. It is as fol- 
lows: "Having long cherished the desire to found 
an institution where white boys and girls might be 
taught not only a knowledge of their duty to their 
Creator and their fellow men, but also receive the 
benefit of a sound, thorough, and practical English edu- 
cation, and such as might fit them for the active duties 
of life, as well as instruction in all the higher branches 
of knowledge, except denominational theology, to the 
extent that the same are now or hereafter may be 
taught in any of the secular colleges or universities of 
the highest grade in the country, I feel grateful to God 



292 Orations and Historical Addresses 

that through his kind providence I have been sufficiently 
favored to gratify the wish of my heart." 

The thirty-sixth section of the will makes provision, 
should the funds justify, after the complete organiza- 
tion and establishment of the institutions of 
learning, for the maintenance, clothing, and edu- 
cation of orphaned children. He further prescribed 
that they should receive a sound English education, 
and expressed the desire that moral instruction should 
form a prominent part of their education. So far as 
human means should allow, they should be made not 
useful citizens only, but good citizens, deeply impressed 
with a knowledge of their duties to their God and their 
fellow men, and with a love of their country, too, and 
its united republican institutions, in the blessed and 
peaceful enjoyment of which it was his fervent prayer 
that they and their descendants might continue to live. 

That portion of the gift of Charles McMicken to 
the city of Cincinnati which included lands of the prob- 
able value of fifty thousand dollars in the state of 
Louisiana was lost entirely in 1860, by a decision of 
the Supreme Court of that state, at the instance of 
one or more of the heirs at law, while many years 
elapsed before the estate could be settled and the title 
of the city to the property completely established. 
This, indeed, was not accomplished without protracted 
litigation, and was ended only by a judgment of the 
Supreme Court of the United States. 

The decision of the Supreme Court of Louisiana is 
reported in Vol. 15 Louisiana Annual Reports, page 
154, and annuls the devise so far as the lands in Louis- 
iana are concerned, on the ground that a disposition 
in a testament, having for its object the foundation 
and maintenance of colleges under the administration 



Charles McMicken 293 

of a mianieipal corporation as trustee forever, is a pro- 
hibited fidei commissum and substitution. Judah P. 
Benjamin, afterwards a member of the cabinet of the 
confederate states, was the counsel for the city of Cin- 
cinnati in that litigation. 

The decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
States is reported in 24 Howard, page 465. It was 
claimed in argument that the devise and bequest to 
the city should be held void on the ground that the trus- 
tee, the city of Cincinnati, is incapable of taking and ex- 
ecuting the trust, and that the cesfnis que trust are de- 
pendent on the selection and designation of the trus- 
tee; consequently there is not, nor can there ever be, 
either trustee or cestui que trust. 

It was further claimed that the will withdraws the 
college from the power of the legislature, in viola- 
tion of the constitution of Ohio, and makes it immortal, 
and creates a perpetuity in the lands with which they 
are endowed, making them inalienable forever, which 
is against the letter and policy of the law. Judge 
Headington and Thomas Ewing represented the ap- 
pellants, the heirs at law, while Mr. Taft, Mr. Pugh, 
and Mr. Perrj' appeared for the city of Cincinnati. 

The court declared that the will should stand, and 
established as a proposition of law that the doctrines 
founded upon the statute of 43 Elizabeth, c. 4, in rela- 
tion to charitable trusts to corporations, either munici- 
pal or private, have been adopted by the courts of 
equity in Ohio, but not by express legislation ; nor was 
that necessary to give courts of equity in Ohio that 
jurisdiction. It further established the proposition 
that the English statutes of mortmain were never in 
force in the English colonies; and if they were ever 
considered to be so in the state of Ohio, it must have 



294 Orations and Historical Addresses 

been from that resolution by the governor and the 
judges in her territorial condition ; and if so, they were 
repealed by the act of 1806. The court, in short, held, 
in express terms, that the city of Cincinnati as a cor- 
poration is capable of taking in trust devises and be- 
quests for charitable uses, and can take and administer 
the devises and bequests in the will of Charles Mc- 
Micken. The court further held that the direction in 
the tliirty-second section of the will, that the real estate 
devised should not be alienated, makes no perpetuity 
in the sense forbidden by the law, but only a perjietuity 
allowed by law and equity in the case of charitable 
trusts. 

The provisions of the will prohibited the sale of 
any property situated within the city of Cincinnati, or 
the lease of any property for a term of ten years. The 
will directs that the college buildings shall be plain 
but neat and substantial in their character, and so con- 
structed that, in conformity with their architectural 
design, they may from time to time be enlarged as 
the rents of the estate devised may allow and the ends 
of the institution may require. 

The history of collegiate education from the early 
colonial period to the present will show that the tend- 
ency has been to educate the individual as a sovereign 
citizen and prepare him for the duties of the state. 
The colonists held learning as a trust alike sacred to 
the best interests of the church and society in a forma- 
tive state. Theology was taught in nearly every col- 
lege. This was the dominant spirit in early colonial 
education. The colonists brought with them the habits 
and thoughts and tendencies of a trans- Atlantic civi- 
lization. It is not strange, as has been said, that the 
"grammar schools" of New England were modeled 



Charles McMicken 295 

after the grammar schools and middle schools of Old 
England, while the New England academies bore the 
impress of the "great i^ublic schools" of Rugby and 
Eton and Westminster and Harrow, nor that the first 
colonial colleges, such as Harvard and William-and- 
Mary and Yale and Columbia and Dartmouth were 
practically patterned after the old classical colleges, 
whose foniis and curricula may be traced back to 
mediseval influences. With the progress of the people 
came more enlarged views as to the necessity of an 
educated citizenship. Since church and state, once 
so closely allied in education, have become more di- 
vorced, the later educational policy is to develop the 
moral, social, and intellectual improvement of the peo- 
ple. The fabric of free government can only be made 
secure by an ever-increasing morality and intelligence. 
It is interesting in connection with the will of Charles 
McMicken to read the will of George Washington, and 
reflect upon his plan for higher education declared 
one hundred years ago. In Washington's correspond- 
ence with Adams and Hamilton and Jefferson he in- 
sisted upon the education of youth at home rather than 
abroad, and believed in the promotion of political in- 
telligence as a national safeguard. In his last will oc- 
curs the following significant passage: "Looking anx- 
iously forward to the accomplishment of so desirable 
an object as this is, my mind has not been able to con- 
template any plan more likely to effect the measure 
than the establishment of a university in the central 
part of the United States, to which the youths of for- 
tune and talent from all parts thereof may be sent for 
the completion of their education in all the branches of 
polite literature, in arts and sciences, in acquiring 



296 Orations and Historical Addresses 

knowledge of the principles of polities and good gov- 
ernment." No page in the history- of that great man 
glows with a more resplendent patriotism than when 
he declined to accept from the legislature of Virginia, 
as a mark of esteem and acknowledgment for his serv- 
ices to the state and federal government, one hundred 
shares of James-River Improvement stock and tifty 
shares of Potomac stock. The one was devoted, at his 
suggestion, to the prospective university in the Federal 
City, the other was given to Liberty Hall Academy, 
now Washington and Lee University. 

It is one of the declared objects of this benefaction 
that instruction should be given in the higher branches 
of knowledge, to the extent that the same may be taught 
in any of the secular colleges or universities of the 
highest gi'ade in this country. It was the purpose of 
the donor that the best opportunities should be brought 
directly home to the young men and young women of 
his adopted city. The younger Pliny believed it to be 
the work of patriotism, for it was in this spirit that 
he wrote to his friend, that nothing could be more 
acceptable to the country than to have the young men 
receive their education where they receive their birth, 
and to be accustomed from their infancy to inliabit 
and affect their native soil. 

It is no less the avowed object of this benefaction 
that the duty of educating the people rests on great 
public grounds, and on moral and political foundations. 
It is essential that public opinion be enlightened and 
stimulated to public duty, for the inactivity of the 
good becomes the opportunity of the bad. Charles 
McMicken insisted upon an education that would fit 
young men and young women for the active duties 
of life. He recognized that a sound morality might 



Charles McMlcken 297 

exist in the work of education without "denomina- 
tional theology." He urged that moral instruction 
should form a prominent part of education, and that 
the best result of higher education meant not only 
useful citizens but good citizens, and that all should 
look upward to that Providence which had so favored 
him that he could gratify the wish of his heart. There 
never was taught a better morality, nor a better theol- 
ogy, nor a more sublime patriotism than that declared 
by the founder of the University of Cincinnati in words 
which come to us to-night like a benediction: "It is 
my desire * * » that they may be deeply im- 
pressed with a knowledge of their duties to their God 
and to their fellow men, and with a love for their 
country and its united republican institutions, in the 
blessed and peaceful enjoyment of which it is my fer- 
vent prayer they and their descendants may continue 
to live." 

The Ordinance of 1787 declares that "religion, mor- 
ality, and knowledge being necessary to good govern- 
ment and the happiness of mankind, schools and the 
means of education shall forever be encouraged." In 
like spirit the constitution of Ohio of 1802 insisted that 
"religion, morality, and knowledge being essentially 
necessary to good government and the happiness of 
mankind, schools and the means of instruction shall 
forever be encouraged by legislative provisions not 
inconsistent with the right of conscience." The con- 
stitution of Ohio of 1851 embodied the same provision 
in the organic law: "Religion, morality, and knowl- 
edge being essential to good government, it shall be 
the duty of the general assembly to pass suitable laws 
to protect every religious denomination in the peace- 



298 Orations and Historical Addresses 

able enjoyment of its own mode of public worsbip, and 
to encourage schools and the means of education." 

These were the principles upon which five great 
republics of the northwest have erected their laws and 
constitutions, and these were the influences which have 
educated the people of this imperial territory to the 
true idea of free and representative government. 
There is to-day no higher duty for the University of 
Cincinnati, nor indeed for any other university in the 
land, than to teach that morality is the basis of all 
good citizenship, and that the best instruction consists 
in best fitting all who may be taught to conduct and 
develop the noble work of a self-governing republic. 

The University of Cincinnati had its origin in the 
munificence of Charles McMicken. He secured to our 
city the benefits of a free collegiate education, thus 
crowning the work of instruction begun in the primary 
schools and continued through the high schools, which, 
too, are in no small part the gift of those public- 
spirited men whose names should always be spoken 
with reverence— Woodward and Hughes. 

The act for the organization of the university was 
passed by the general assembly of Ohio in the year 
1870. This legislation was designed and confidently 
expected by those instrumental in its enactment to be 
the means of uniting, under the auspices of the city, 
the trust of Charles McMicken with various other 
funds for educational and scientific purposes in the 
hands of trustees or corporations. No separate fund 
had accomplished any thing of itself, or was capable 
of accomplishing any important result through inde- 
pendent action. It was indeed only through such 
united effort that an institution could be established 



Charles McMichen 299 

and maintained on the broad foundations contemplated 
in the bequest. 

Difficulties have been encountered and prejudices 
overcome until there has been fulfilled the very pur- 
pose of the benefactor in that the best opportunities 
have been brought home to the young men and young 
women of Cincinnati for an education in ail the higher 
branches, the same as taught in the best secular colleges 
or universities in this country. There is a corps of 
competent instructors, a well-established curriculum, 
and the necessary apparatus and api^liances to enforce 
instruction and for demonstrating the subjects to be 
taught. 

There is an opportunity for solid learning and 
genuine culture worthy the most laudable ambition. 
The student of classical literature may go from the 
Images of lA\j and the Odes of Horace to the severer 
selections from Juvenal and Propertius, or from the 
Philippics of Demosthenes to the Electra of Sophocles 
or the Frogs of Aristophanes. The student in chemis- 
try has open before him an inexhaustible field for in- 
vestigation and speculation, and by the aid of the most 
approved instruments and the most modern analysis 
may elaborate the processes of nature. The student 
in mathematics may reason of angles and triangles, 
of ellipses and parabolas, and may make the earth 
do the work of describing and measuring her own 
motion. The student of geology may unfold the his- 
tory of creation as it lies written in the hidden pages 
of piled-up strata, and, gathering up the fossil frag- 
ments of a forgotten time, may reproduce the ancient 
forms which inhaliited the laud, bone to bone and part 
to part, till Leviathan and Behemoth stand before 
us again, as Cuvier built up the mastodom from a few 



300 Orations and Historical Addresses 

relics, and Michael Angelo, with the Torso of the 
Vatican, perfected anew the masterpiece of Grecian 
genius. The observatory, with its complete equipment, 
invites all to come who would attempt to study the im- 
mense mystery of the stars, and learn for themselves 
that the firmament does indeed show His handiwork. 
The student in the deiDartment of science may lift the 
vast reflector or refractor to the skies, and, sweeping 
the heavens, may detect undiscovered planets in their 
hiding-places or drag out bashful satellites from their 
habitual concealment. The library, while not large, 
is rapidly increasing in the number of its volumes. 
In addition to its use the students of the university 
have free access to the public library of Cincinnati, 
which is well supplied with books in every department 
of human learning and research, and supplied with the 
best periodicals and magazines of all Europe and 
America. 

The progress of co-operative union of the university 
with other educational institutions of the city, under 
the title of the University of the City of Cincinnati, 
has been measurably successful. There is now a uni- 
versity population of nearly eight hundred, directed 
by an eflScient corps of professors and instructors. 
The beneficial results of this union have been seen in 
the increased number of students in the clinical and 
Pathological School of the Hospital, whereby the funds 
have been increased and a new impulse given to the- 
growth of the library and museum. The trustees have 
already established a pathological department for his- 
tological examination, and have thus opened up a new 
and hopeful way for original investigation in morbid 
anatomy and bacteriological research. The alliance 
of the various educational trusts of the citv should be 



Charles McMicken 301 

encouraged and fostered to the end that the university 
may attain a more commanding position, not only by 
reason of a broader and more thorough culture, but 
by reason of the increased number of matriculates 
in all the departments of instruction. 

The School of Design was the first department es- 
tablished in the university. It was organized in ac- 
cordance with that provision of the will in which it is 
enjoined that such instruction shall be given as will 
fit the student for the active duties of life as well 
as the higher branches of knowledge. It was not in- 
tended for the mere sake of an accomplishment, nor 
indeed in the interest of the fine arts. The object was 
to have in view the principles as well as the art of 
drawing, and thus lajdng the foundation for its sub- 
sequent application in any and all operative persons, 
whether as machinists, engineers, architects, or artists. 
There was at the same time sought the cultivation of 
taste and design, and the development of the inventive 
faculty of applying new forms to material for the 
benefit of all the manifold works of industry. It was 
the purpose that the student of decorative art, intent 
upon pursuing the art of drawing or design, painting 
or sculpture, carving or decoration, in the higher walks, 
should find the amplest room for development, so that 
there would follow such a culture as would not only 
beautify our homes, but would make the manufactures 
of our city rival in design the tapestry of Gobelin or 
the porcelain of Sevres. 

The formal transfer of the School of Design of the 
university to the Cincinnati Museum Association was 
made February 1, 1884. It is only proper to say that 
the School of Design realized all just expectations 
while under the control of the university. Under its 



302 Orations and Historical Addresses 

fostering care it became worthy of the city, and from 
a small beginning developed into an institution with 
a corps of experienced instructors and nearly three 
hundred students, and with all the necessary condi- 
tions for a high culture in art. It became, indeed, the 
parent of other schools of design and drawing, and a 
large number of its pupils are now pursuing the educa- 
tion received as an industrial pursuit. It was the 
object to make it a school of utility as well as beauty. 

The university was animated in this transfer by no 
other purpose than the public good. It realized that 
the trust for the benefit of higher education did not 
necessarily comprehend a school of design, and that 
selfish ambition should not stand in the way of a con- 
centration of all funds devoted to purposes of art. 
There was no other motive than that art education 
should be promoted, and that a generous private spirit 
should be met by a like public spirit in affording the 
best advantages which can come from munificent pri- 
vate donations in the further development of an art 
school. The name of Judge Nicholas Longworth, like 
that of his honored father, Joseph Longworth, will be 
remembered as a i^ublic benefactor in connection with 
the Art School. As long, too, as the Art Museum shall 
crown our hills in graceful outlines— an ornament to 
our city and an inspiration to every citizen — the name 
of McMicken should be spoken with that of Charles 
West and David Sinton, since his benefaction organized 
the School of Design which made possible the Art 
School of the Cincinnati Museum Association. 

The common council of Cincinnati, in the same gen- 
erous spirit which prompted the gift of Charles Mc- 
Micken for the cause of higher education, on Septem- 
ber 20, 1889, without a dissenting vote, adopted an 



Charles McMicken 303 

ordinance authorizing the occupancy of a part of 
Burnet-Woods Park by the University of Cincinnati. 
This ordinance gave to the university the use of nearly 
forty-four acres for the purpose of a central university 
building and such other structures as might inciden- 
tally be connected with the university proper. It is 
conditioned that the University should have tlie right 
to use the remainder of the tract for university pur- 
poses, and to build roads, lay out grounds, plant trees, 
and othei-wise beautify and improve the grounds, sub- 
ject to the approval of the board of administration. 
It is expressly understood that the remainder of the 
tract not occupied by buildings is to remain open to 
the public as a part of Burnet-Woods Park. 

It was further conditioned that the board of direc- 
tors would commence the construction of the main 
building for university purposes within three years 
from the date of the execution of the agreement, other- 
wise the agreement to be void without proceedings in 
forfeiture therefor. There was also a further stipula- 
tion, that the boai'd of directors would expend one 
hundred thousand dollars in the construction of the 
buildings and other improvements for the use of the 
university, and forever after maintain and control 
buildings so constructed, together with the grounds, 
for university purposes. 

In case of the failure of the university to make sub- 
stantial compliance with the conditions and stipulations 
in the agreement, or in case the university should fail 
to maintain and keep up a university for educational 
purposes, the same should, at the option of the city, 
become void, and the city might retain and retake 
exclusive control of the premises. 

This ordinance is vital to the future of the Uni- 



304 Orations and Historical Addresses 

versity of Cincinnati. The city authorities, in the 
spirit of a splendid patriotism, have supplemented the 
donation of the founder of the University of Cincin- 
nati by affording all the facilities at their command 
in aid of liberal education. There is now offered every 
opportunity to wealth— like the riches of the Medici, 
so prodigal in art— to endow an institution of learn- 
ing which shall be open to every home in Cincinnati. 
There is an undoubted public sentiment that Burnet- 
Woods Park is the proper location for the main edifice 
of the University of Cincinnati. 

The circuit court for the first judicial circuit of 
Ohio has already decided that the desire and intention 
of Charles McMicken was to found a college of the 
highest character, but not to restrict the location of the 
building perpetually to one spot; and that if the site 
selected by the testator was at that time a proper one, 
the trustees under the will would be authorized to 
erect buildings and conduct the institution on other 
suitable grounds. This case is now pending in the 
Supreme Court. 

This is perhaps not the time to indulge in the lan- 
guage of prophecy, but the time will surely come when 
there will rise from the very summit of our park, and 
in the midst of a landscape of surpassing loveliness, 
an institution of learning open to every home in Cin- 
cinnati, and to which every citizen of the whole com- 
monwealth can point with an affectionate pride, as it 
sends out educated men and women for the responsi- 
ble duties of life. 

The fact that collegiate education is free does not 
destroy its value. It was the opinion of the fathers 
and the later settlers of the west and south that a 
"common" or "free" school did not necessarily mean 



Charles McMicken 305 

a school of low grade, but one that was open to all on 
equal terms. It would be well to return to the primi- 
tive signification, and consider all schools, colleges and 
universities, high schools, secondary and primary, 
whether state or non-state, as schools of the people, 
and intended for a higher culture and a more elevated 
standard; because, after all, a higher culture and a 
more elevated standard make for patriotism and na- 
tionality. 

The past justifies the hope that the purpose of the 
founder of the university will be fully realized. It 
is a matter of congratulation that it is already recog- 
nized as an institution of higher learning, and that it 
offers to the sons and daughters of a growing city 
an opportunity for an education which may be called 
an advanced education. What the university has ac- 
comiolished for this community is not to be measured 
alone by the number and character of its students, 
but by the influence of other students as well, who have 
pursued courses in the classes not leading to an aca- 
demic degree. 

It is claimed, without assumption, that the graduates 
of our university will compare f avoidably in scholastic 
attainments with the alumni of any other institution 
in the country. The reputation of the institution is 
largely in the keeping of its alumni, because much 
must depend on those who annually go forth from 
college walls to enter upon the duties of life. The 
education that means something is not necessarily the 
education of mere classics or mere mathematics or 
mere science, but the education that enables the student 
to stand on his feet and to walk wisely, the education 
which comes of more intelligent conceptions of thought 
and more matured and independent judgments. 

20 



306 Orations and Historical Addresses 

The city of Cincinnati lias a just pride in the munif- 
icence of its citizens in the direction of music and art 
and industrial training. This munificence has found 
expression in the College of Music, the Art Museum, 
and its schools of technology. The claims of the uni- 
versity should appeal not less strongly to the confi- 
dence and support of our citizens, and this confidence 
should take substantial form in the way of liberal en- 
dowments for enlarged opportunities and improved 
means of instruction. It can truthfully be said that 
no city in the country to-day affords such splendid 
facilities to young men and young women to acquire 
a liberal education without cost. Its relations to the 
common and high-schools, as well as to private schools 
of the city and vicinity, have been cultivated and as- 
sured, so that a cordial and hearty sjanpathy and con- 
fidence exist between the imiversity and the prepara- 
tory schools on which it must depend. 

The university has a right to the best zeal and warm- 
est affection of every citizen who believes in better 
things for the city and for the commonwealtn and for 
the country. The common council has never hesitated, 
in the whole history of the university, to extend a 
helping hand. The ordinance to grant the use of the 
great park for the purf^ose of the institution was 
adopted with a spirit which seemed to welcome the 
opportunity. The generous donations already made 
have laid the foundations broad and deep upon which 
is founded a great university. It is a work in which 
all good citizens must feel an abiding interest; and 
even if a generous response to its needs shall be de- 
ferred, and men shall hesitate to share their fortunes 
with mankind, the time is not far distant when a great 
institution of learning— after the continental idea— 



Charles McMicken 307 

with several distinct faculties, and the professional 
studies of law and medicine, as well as advanced 
courses of scientific and classical research, here in 
our midst, shall attest that Cincinnati has indeed en- 
couraged and stimulated the course of higher learn- 
ing. 

Castelar declares that when one man dies for the 
many, instead of living for himself, he secures for his 
name the most glorious of transformations— martyr- 
dom,— and to his immortality the noblest of temples— 
the heart of the people. When one man lives for others, 
instead of living for himself, he, too, secures for his 
name a title of immortality and a fame more lasting 
than the Roman laurel. There is a way to send a name 
down to the generations— not alone for the silent in- 
fluences of good which are constantly working, but to 
identify it with those of Harvard and Tale and Cor- 
nell and Johns Hopkins and McMicken, whose gen- 
erosity embraced the higher needs of humanity. With 
that of McMicken, too, must be mentioned the names 
of Kilgour and Dexter and Brown and Thorns, who 
have supplemented the original bequest by generous 
donations for higher education. 

The Cincinnati Astronomical Society, with its in- 
struments and books; Lilienthal, with his valuable col- 
lection of minerals; Fechheimer, with his geological 
and mineralogical collection; Weatherby, with his con- 
tribution to the geological department; and Bliss, with 
his library of varied literature,— are mentioned with 
respect in these exercises to-night, because they have 
given to the university enduring evidence of their 
regard and affection, and because they believed that 
large acquisitions in science and literature and art are 



308 Orations and Historical Addresses 

valuable in propoi'tiou as they contribute to the eleva- 
tion and advancement of all. 

Charles McMicken sleeps in Spring Grove Cemetery, 
under a modest shaft which bears only his name. His 
labors are ended, but his work has just commenced. 
There is a tide of thought and influence which will 
continue to flow towards its far-off ocean. Like the 
fabled fountain of Arethusa, it will appear in streams 
of perennial beauty. He fills a niche in the temple of 
a changeless and heroic immortality. 

It is said of him that often when looking over the 
young and growing city from the homestead, then 
beautified by foliage and flowers and since consecrated 
to higher learning, he prophesied for Cincinnati the 
future which has since been fulfilled, and expressed 
the wish that his name might be identified with col- 
legiate education in his adopted city. No doubt he 
then realized the lasting truth that the individual is 
only small while humanity is great, and that the title 
to immortality is to associate one's name with some 
overwhelming truth or some undying cause. 

Charles McMicken was fortunate above men in that 
he went down to the grave not alone with the joyous 
confidence that his efTorts had helped the progress of 
humanity, but that his memory would live in the 
gratitude of the young and aspiring, whom he aided 
and directed to a better life. The sunset of his de- 
clining days was illumined with the glow which comes 
from the recollection of generous toils for fellow men. 
His name will stand, as year shall follow year and 
generation shall succeed generation, as the friend of 
young men and young women, as the benefactor of his 
race, and as the founder of the University of Cin- 
cinnati. 



ANNUAL ADDBESS 

Gentlemen of the State Bar Association: 

It is a source of special gratification to welcome 
the brethren of the profession after the lapse of an- 
other year to these waters, made historic by the vic- 
tory of American arms, and to these islands whose 
luxuriant foliage and refreshing breezes invite from 
the strife of protracted and vexatious litigation, to 
friendly, jiersoual intercourse, and the exchange of 
fraternal greetings. 

The classics called poetry and music and art the 
humanities, because they brought no war, and no sor- 
row, but advanced in the name of jjleasure and peace. 
We set out at this annual gathering in the name of the 
amenities, because we meet as members of a common 
profession whose supreme purpose is to advance en- 
lightened jurisprudence, and at the same time to de- 
velop the true spirit of fraternity by the closer union 
of those who believe in strengthening the foundations 
of justice and in the best method of its administration. 
Fortunately, the veiy calling of the law avoids the 
intolerant spirit. Neither sect nor party dare intrude 
in this presence. We forget the disturbing elements 
of contending schools and the zeal of a fervid partisan- 
ship in the spirit of a generous magnanimity, because 
the real lawyer never forgets that the golden rule 
underlies all public and private justice. There is noth- 

Delivered as President of the Ohio State Bar Association, 
at the Annual Meeting, held at Piit-in-Bay. Ohio, July 15, 
1892. 

[ 309 ] 



310 Orations and Historical Addresses 

ing more universal than human ignorance ; there should 
be nothing more universal than human charity. 

Nor does he forget the spirit of humility, but with 
Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered the system of gravi- 
tation, laments that only a few shells have been picked 
up on the great sea-shore. Egotism becomes intoler- 
ance when it proceeds upon the assumption that the 
ideal has been reached, for when the whole horizon 
of history is measured, there will be noticed a wonder- 
ful death of the small, and a wonderful resurrection of 
the great. 

It is the history of the profession that it discards 
selfish motives and petty things, and only looks to those 
overwhelming truths of virtue and character on which 
the fabric of society must rest. It realizes, too, that 
there are laws of human action so lofty that they bring 
their own reward. 

In this spirit, then, we assemble for the thirteenth 
annual meeting of the Ohio State Bar Association, 
and it is to be hoped that when distance shall separate 
and years intervene, there will be found in the recol- 
lection of these things something of the same feeling 
which inspired Horace in his Lyrics, when he so touch- 
ingly refers to the genial fellowship of other days. 

It was certainly the purpose of those who conceived 
this association, to form an organization of the pro- 
fession throughout the state which should thoroughly 
and eflficiently embody and develop its corporate life 
and spirit. It has become the center of a growing 
professional interest, and has already proven to be a 
useful and efficient agency of improvement and reform 
in the direction of facilitating the administration of 
justice and in cultivating cordial intercourse among 
the members of the bar. 



Annual Address 311 

This alliance among the profession fi"om all parts 
of the state must give force and unity to any recom- 
mendation looking to a reform in the proceedings 
before the courts. We are, indeed, alone commis- 
sioned by the commonwealth to appear in the tribunals 
established by law and vindicate the rights of liberty 
and property, and to that end are servants of the very 
highest order for the promotion of the ijublic welfare. 

There is much to admire in this respect in the Eng- 
lish bar. One who honored the calling in this country 
and enriched its literature has said, ' ' The bar of Eng- 
land, that most illustrious body of well trained men, 
who have wrought so usefully and conspicuously in 
the gradual construction of the best civilization of the 
age, whose traditions we follow, whose language we 
speak, whose system of jurisprudence we administer, 
whose precedents are our authorities, is to-day the 
survivor of the medijeval guilds that retain, untouched 
by the chances and changes of time, its ancient and 
original privileges, chiefly the right of admitting and 
excluding from its own membership. No one can be 
admitted to practice law in England except by the 
bar of England. Its homes and schools are still, as 
for hundreds of years they have been, in the beautiful 
Temple by the Thames, the ancient seat of Christian 
Knights, whose sjoirit of chivalry and charity and jus- 
tice to the poor and weak still inspires the locality and 
survives the tournaments and jousts and peaceful 
strifes and contests of high minded lawj^ers, honorably 
maintaining the opposing sides, but nevertheless fight- 
ing in the same great cause of civil justice under a 
common banner." 

The spirit of association must stimulate and aui- 



312 Orations and Historical Addresses 

mate, so that it is but the history of centuries that 
every great principle of civil justice has taken the 
form of legislative action, through the efforts of a 
united and intelligent body of the earnest students 
and thinkers in the law, and has been buttressed in 
human society by the decrees and judgments of a just 
and fearless bench. 

Since our separation last year, Bufus P. Ranney, 
the first president of the State Bar Association, has 
passed from life to death. He left us December 6, 
1891, at his home on Euclid avenue, in the city of Cleve- 
land, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. 

He was a member of the convention which framed 
the present constitution of Ohio, and served on the 
committee on the judiciary, and the committee on re- 
vision, to which the phraseologj' and arrangement of 
that great instrument was committed. It can safely 
be said that no member of that body was more instru- 
mental in securing those provisions in the organic law 
which time has sanctioned as the surest safe-guard 
against corporate power, and the best means of secur- 
ing wise and impartial legislation. 

He believed in the law as right, and in its proper 
administration as the only method of enforcing right. 
This principle chai'acterized his whole career, and 
united with his comprehension of legal subjects, gave 
him largely the mastery of the common law as well as 
the legal and constitutional history of his country. 
His mind was analytical and his reason logical, so 
that, with the command of a diction singularly pure, 
his decisions are models of clearness and distinguished 
by broad and comprehensive principles. He was twice 
a member of the Supreme Court of the state, and it is 
fortunate that one who was so instrumental in fram- 



Annual Address 313 

ing the fundamental law of the commonwealth, was in 
a position to give interpretation to many of its provi- 
sions. He venerated the coumiou law of England and 
yet did not hesitate to reject any of its principles, with- 
out an abiding conviction of their justice and adapta- 
tion with the genius and spirit of our own institutions. 
Judge Ranney might be described as Lord Campbell 
pictures one of the chief justices of England, as culti- 
vating law as a science — having distinct objects to 
which it might or might not be adapted, admitting and 
requiring alterations and amendments, according to 
the varying circumstances of society. 

He believed in the maintenance of a just and equi- 
table system of jurisprudence, and had an abiding con- 
viction that the energetic efforts of a learned bar, as 
he pleaded for a liberal legal education, aided by a 
large body of educated men, instructed in and devoted 
to its principles, and necessarily carrying the sympa- 
thy of the whole community, would make it approach 
nearer to that absolute and eternal justice, with no 
one so high as to be above its power, and no one so 
humble as to be beneath its protecting care. 

There are many here who will remember how he 
performed the duty now undertaken by myself, at the 
first meeting of the State Bar Association, with charac- 
teristic duty and fidelity, and will not forget the sound 
of that voice as it appealed to the profession to keep 
the sacred trust for making human justice, in its mani- 
fold applications to human wants and interests more 
closely conform to its original and Divine pattern. 

It is made the duty of the president of the asso- 
ciation, by express provision of the constitution, to 
deliver an address at the opening of the meeting next 
after his election. The framers of the constitution, 



314 Orations and Historical Addresses 

with perhaps prophetic realization of this occasion, 
have made the president ineligible for re-election. 
Those who have gathered here to-day will doubtless 
be impressed with the wisdom of the provision. The 
marked professional distinction, however, awarded by 
my brethren of the Ohio bar, is greatly appreciated, 
because it bears on it the specific stamp and value of 
their confidence and good will. The duty still is in- 
volved in some embarrassment, since no guidance is 
furnished as to the selection of topics, except what 
might be inferred from the scope and character of the 
occasion itself. 

To promote reform in the law, to facilitate the ad- 
ministration of justice, and to uphold integrity, honor 
and courtesy, in the legal profession, are among the 
declared objects of the association. 

It was thought not inappropriate, therefore, instead 
of a formal address on some special topic, kindred to 
the law, to speak informally of such matters as may 
affect the profession and which have transpired since 
the last annual meeting. This presentation, with the 
purposes of the organization always in view, will con- 
sist principally of a reference to the new Federal Court 
of Appeals and a review of the legislation of the state 
as the same may relate to our supreme court and other 
inferior courts, the creation of new statutory offenses, 
the jury system, the amendments of the law of corpora- 
tions, elections, and protection of labor, and the more 
important modifications or changes touching judicial 
procedure. 

This review has been confined within reasonable 
limits by a system of classification, and it is not in- 
tended that there should be more than a reference to 



Annual Address 315 

the enactments, with now and then a suggestion called 
forth by the principle involved in the legislation. 

The Federal Cii'cuit Court of Appeals was estab- 
lished by an act of Congress of March 3, 1891 ; but the 
selection of the judges and the organization proper of 
the court occurred after mid-sununer. The act pro- 
vided for an additional judge in each circuit, and then 
made the new court to consist of three members, the 
justice of the supreme court assigned to the circuit 
and the two circuit judges. The court is made a court 
of appellate jurisdiction, to hear writs of error and 
appeals from judgments and decrees of existing circuit 
and district courts of the circuit. A judge who decided 
the question or case which is the subject of review 
is disqualified to sit in the court of appeals. His place 
is supplied by the court designating a district judge of 
the circuit to sit and make a part of the court. All 
cases heard in the circuit and district courts may now 
be carried up for review by a higher court. In cases 
involving a constitutional question, a question of juris- 
diction, or conviction of infamous crime, writs of error 
or appeals, lie directly to the supreme court. A deci- 
sion by the court of appeals is final in patent cases, ad- 
miralty cases, cases in which jurisdiction is obtained 
solely by reason of the diverse citizeoisliip of the 
parties, in revenue cases, and cases arising under crim- 
inal law, unless the judge of the court of appeals shall 
certify a question arising therein to the supreme court, 
or unless the supreme court shall, on motion, issue its 
writ of certiorari to bring up the case. This last 
power the supreme court has said, it will only exercise 
to compel uniformity of decision between the court of 
appeals in the different circuits and in cases of national 
importance. In all other cases than those mentioned. 



316 Orations and Historical Addresses 

cases decided by the court of appeals, may be reviewed 
by the supreme court, if the amount involved exceed 
one thousand dollars. 

The result of this act is that nine-tenths of all the 
judgments of the court of appeals will be final. The 
change effected by the law is two-fold : it makes a new 
court of last resort for the great majority of the cases 
tried in the federal court, and it makes every case 
triable in those courts appealable. The decision of the 
judge in a court of first instance is now final. Thus 
is removed one objection often made to the unrestrained 
power of federal judges in cases involving less than 
five thousand dollars. 

When the bar has become familiar with the features 
of the new law it is certain that the business of the 
court will rapidly increase. The aggregate business 
of the new circuit court of appeals will largely exceed 
the business of the supreme court before the passage 
of the new act. The act of March 3, 1891, was by 
joint resolution made applicable to writs of error and 
appeals taken after July 1, 1891. The relief intended 
for the supreme court will not therefore be fully felt 
until all cases filed in that court before July 1, 1891, 
shall have been disposed of, and this will probably not 
be until July, 1893, or 1894. 

A bill is now pending which will probably become 
a law, giving to both parties, if they agree, the right 
to transfer any case now pending to the supreme court 
of a class cognizable under the new act by the court of 
appeals to the latter court. It is doubtful, however, 
whether this will materially reduce the docket of the 
supreme court. 

The new court of appeals is now on trial. It is too 
soon to express an intelligent opinion of the advantages 



Annual Address 317 

or disadvantages of the system. Oue change has been 
suggested which might add to the national character 
of the new court. If the circuit judges could be as- 
signed by the chief justice, when required to sit in the 
court of appeals of other circuits than their own, the 
benefit from the added judicial force of nine new judges 
could be equalized throughout the country. In some 
circuits the apjiellate business is comparatively small, 
while in others it promises soon to crowd the docket 
and delay the disposition of the business. In this 
way, the necessity for calling a district judge to sit in 
the court of appeals would be obviated. The circuit 
judges could give their entire time to appellate work, 
and the circuit and district work would be wholly at- 
tended to by district judges. The suggestion has met 
the approval of Senator Hoar, chairman of the 
judiciary committee, and in another congress may 
ripen into legislation. 

The circuit in which our profession is most inter- 
ested, is composed of the states of Ohio, Kentucky, 
Tennessee and Michigan. The president, in selecting 
judges for this court, did not limit his choice to members 
of his own political party. This practice has not been 
unusual for appointments on the bench in many of the 
states, but it is an innovation in the history of the 
national judiciary, and certainly a precedent which it 
would be well to follow. 

There has been much discussion in the association 
in respect to the legislation necessary for the relief of 
the Supreme Court of Ohio. The committee on ju- 
dicial administration and legal reform has given in- 
telligent consideration and thought to the subject. The 
act of the general assembly, which passed April 13th, 
is perhaps not as broad and comprehensive as the 



318 Orations and Historical Addresses 

legislation proposed by the Adams bill, which was 
approved at the last annual meeting, yet an additional 
judge, with the system proposed, may assist in re- 
ducing the docket. The act is amendatorj^ to section 
411 and 439 of the Revised Statutes, and supplements 
section 410 with an additional section. 

The court will hereafter consist of six judges or- 
ganized in two divisions. The two judges of the su- 
preme court having the shortest time to run, not hold- 
ing their office by appointment or election to fill a 
vacancy, shall be the chief justices of their resjwctive 
divisions, and as such shall preside at all terras of such 
division; and in case of the absence of the chief jus- 
tice of a division, the judge of such division having in 
like manner the next shortest term shall preside in his 
stead, and the elder in service of the two chief jus- 
tices of such di\asion shall be the chief justice of the 
whole court, and as such shall preside at all terms of 
the court. In case of his absence, the other chief jus- 
tice of a division shall preside. 

It is provided that all decisions by either division 
of the court in causes or matters not reserved to the 
full court, shall be entered as the judgment of the 
court. When the judges composing either division 
decide as to a decision or a cause before it, the cause 
shall be reserved for decision by the full court, and 
when different causes involving the same question are 
before the respective divisions at the same time, such 
causes shall also be reserved for decision by the full 
court. If the whole court divide evenly as to the 
decision in any cause, the judgment of the lower court 
shall be entered as affirmed, and such decision shall be 
held to be the law as to all such questions in other 
causes until overruled by a majority of all the judges. 



Annual Address 319 

When the judges in any matter of original jurisdic- 
tion divide evenly on any question or questions in- 
volved, the determination of the members with whom 
the chief justice votes shall be held to be the judg- 
ment of the court. 

The term of the judges of the siipreme court to be 
elected in the future has been extended to six years; 
of the two judges to be elected in November one will 
be for the extended term of six years, and one for the 
present term of five years. 

The number of cases pending in the supreme court 
at the last annual meeting of the association was nine 
hundred and eighty-four, while the number of cases 
brought from that time to July 2nd was four hundred 
and twenty- one. 

Two hundred cases have been disposed of in that 
period. The number of motions filed was two hundred 
and forty-two, while the number of motions disposed 
of was two hundred and forty-eight. The number of 
cases on the docket at the adjournment on September 
26th last, was nine hundred and eighty-four. 

Among the most important cases decided were those 
involving the Standard Oil trust, the compulsory edu- 
cation law, the provisions of the Cincinnati Charter 
Act, the constitutionality of the Massie law fixing the 
fees for charters on a per cent, of the capital stock, 
of corporations, the construction of the Australian 
ballot law, the right of individuals to prefer creditors 
in cases of assignment, and the two cases providing 
for the experimental farm at Wooster. The circuit 
court for the second judicial circuit has afiSrmed the 
judgment of the lower court that a matricide has the 
right to inherit, under the statute of descents the real 
estate of which his mother was seized in fee simple, 



320 Orations and Historical Addresses 

and whom he wilfully killed. This case has provoked 
some discussion in the law journals, and the decision 
of the court of final resort will be awaited with interest. 
The patient industry of the court is an example, and 
must commend itself to the bar of Ohio. 

The general assembly passed an act authorizing 
the judges of the court of common pleas residing in 
Cuyahoga county to be paid, each out of the treasury 
of Cuyahoga county, twenty-five hundred dollars an- 
nually in addition to the salary now paid judges of 
the court of common pleas out of the state treasury. 
This increased the salary from $4,000 to $5,000. 

An additional judge of the court of common pleas 
was authorized for the first subdivision of the fifth 
judicial district composed of the counties of Adams, 
Brown and Clermont, to be elected at the regular an- 
nual election for state and county ofiBcers in November. 

An additional judge was authorized in the second 
subdivision of the ninth precinct district, composed of 
the counties of Trumbull, Mahoning and Portage, to 
be elected at the regular election for state and county 
officers in November, but with the term of office to 
commence on the fourth Monday of April, 1893. 

There was, also, an act passed authorizing the elec- 
tion of an additional judge of the court of common 
pleas for the first subdivisions of the eighth judicial 
district, composed of the counties of Muskingum, Mor- 
gan, Guernsey and Noble, to be elected the first Mon- 
day in April, 1893, but in the future to be elected at 
the regular election for state and county officers in 
November. 

In the general classification of municipal corpora- 
tions by the act of February 10, 1892, they are now 
divided into cities and villages ; cities are divided into 



Annual Address 321 

two classes, first and second; cities of the first class 
are divided into three grades, first, second and third: 
cities of the second class are divided into five grades, 
first, second, third, third a and fourth: cities of the 
second class which hereafter become cities of the first 
class will constitute the fourth grade of the latter class, 
and villages which will hereafter become cities of the 
fourth grade of the second class. 

Cities of the third grade a are defined as those which 
on the first day of July, 1890, had more than twenty- 
eight thousand and less than thirty-three thousand in- 
habitants, and those which should, on and after the 
passage of the act detining the classification, consti- 
tute and be, and those which on the first day of July 
in any year have, when ascertained in the same way, 
more than twenty-eight thousand and less than thirty- 
three thousand inhabitants. 

The official publication of the session laws specifies 
upon the margin of the page that the classification 
thus defined and minimized and described as a city 
of the second class, third grade a, relates to the officers 
of the city of Springfield, which now includes a police 
judge. By another section of the same act in cities 
of the first class and in cities of the third grade a, of 
the second class, there shall be a court held by the 
police judge, which court shall be styled the police 
court, and be a court of record. 

The legislature also created a police court in cities 
of the second grade of the second class, and made the 
Revised Statutes relating to police courts, and not in- 
consistent with the act creating the last, applicable to 
the court. It provides that such pohee judge should 
be chosen by the electors at the first annual election 
after the passage of the act, and should serve for a 

21 



322 Orations and Historical Addresses 

term of tliree years at a compensation of $2,000. It 
is also specified in the margin of the page of the ses- 
sion laws that this legislation refers to the police court 
of Dayton. 

There were also created by the general assembly 
police judicial districts for cities of the first class, 
second grade. Power is given to the city council to 
designate as many police judicial districts as may 
from time to time be necessary, and to provide for 
the election, term of ofiBce, compensation,— which shall 
not be less than fifteen hundred dollars per annum— 
and the territorial jurisdiction of the police judge for 
each police district. They have final jurisdiction in all 
cases of violation of any ordinance of the city, except 
in cases where the accused is entitled to a jury trial, 
and demands the same, or in cases where the validity 
of an ordinance is involved; in which case it is made 
the duty of the police justice to forthwith certify the 
case, with all the papers and certified copies of the 
docket entries to the police court. They have power 
to issue process, preserve order, and punish for con- 
tempt, grant motions for new trial, motions in arrest 
of judgment, suspend execution of sentence upon no- 
tice of intention to apply for leave to file petition in 
error, and to exercise all of the powers necessary in 
the exercise of their jurisdiction. The act creating 
this tribunal expressly declares, with all the solemnity 
of a legislative enactment, that a full oi^portunity will 
be given the accused to be heard in that court. 

It is understood that this act applies alone to the 
city of Cleveland. 

The general act authorizing the appointment of a 
justice of the peace as police justice in villages, by 
council on the recommendation of the mayor, has been 



Annual Address 323' 

so amended that the term is not limited by the ab- 
sence of the mayor, or his inability or disability, to 
hold court, but shall continue during the term of office 
of the mayor, unless removed on suggestion of the 
mayor by a vote of all the members of council. 

There have been but few changes in the law relating 
to procedure. An imjiortant amendment has been 
made, however, in tlie act j^rovidiug for the manner 
in which trials are to be conducted, by requiring the 
court, when the evidence is concluded and before ar- 
ginnent to the jury is commenced, to give or refuse 
to give written instructions to the juiy in matters of 
law, at the request of either party. 

A proviso has been added to each of the sections 
regulating proceedings in garnishment, both in court 
and before a magistrate, that the garnishee, at the 
time of service, shall be entitled to demand his fees in 
the same manner and amount as other witnesses, and 
if not paid on demand, or within a reasonable time, the 
garnishee will not be bound by nor obliged to obey the 
service. ^ i 

Married women must share the burdens as well as 
the blessings, which come from the more recent legis- 
lation respecting their rights. The words "married 
woman" have been stricken from the law limiting the 
time to six months in which petitions in error must be 
filed, so that she is no longer classified with infants 
or persons of unsound mind. 

The interest of attorneys at law, rather than liti- 
gants, has been considered by including a fee of fif- 
teen dollars for the attorney for the defendant in 
error, in the costs of suit, when a judgment for wages, 
rendered by a justice of the peace, is, by the defendant, 
taken on error to the court of common pleas, and af- 



324 Orations and Historical Addresses 

firmed. No fee, however, will attach unless the wages 
have been demanded in writing and not paid within 
three days after the demand. There is also a supple- 
mentary section intended to discourage appeals. It 
permits the justice to allow an attorney fee not in 
excess of five dollars to be included in the costs, if the 
plaintiff in any action for wages, recover the sum 
claimed by his or her bill of particulars. If the de- 
fendant appeal from any such judgment and the plain- 
tiff on ai^peal recover a like sum, exclusive of interest, 
from the rendition of the judgment before the justice, 
there shall be included in his costs an additional fee 
not in excess of fifteen dollars, as the court may allow. 

The time when exceptions may be taken and reduced 
to writing has been extended to a period not exceeding 
fifty days beyond the date of the overruling of the 
motion for a new trial, or from such decision by the 
court where a motion for a new trial is unnecessary. 

The bill of exceptions must be presented for allow- 
ance within fifty days after the overruling of a motion 
for a new trial, or the decision of the court, where a 
motion for a new trial is not necessary. In case, how- 
ever, of the absence of the trial judge or judges from 
the district or circuit where the bill of exceptions is 
presented for allowance, then it may be deposited with 
the clerk within the fifty days for the examination and 
allowance of the trial judge or judges who shall be 
required to sign the same, if correct, on or before the 
fifth day of the term of court next ensuing after the 
fifty days. 

If the exceptions be not tnie, then, after it is cor- 
rected, the trial judge, or a majority of those com- 
posing the trial court, must allow and sign it before 
the case proceeds; or, if the party excepting consents 



Annual Address 325 

within the fifty days, or in case of the absence of the 
trial judge or judges, on or before the fifth day of the 
next ensuing term of court, the bill of excej)tions shall 
be filed with the pleadings, and, if the party filing re- 
quest it, made a part of the record, but not spread on 
the journal, and an entry entered upon the journal of 
the court within the time fixed for the allowance and 
signing. The bill of exceptions must be submitted to 
opposing counsel, for examination, not less than ten 
days before the expiration of the fifty days, and to 
the trial judge or judges, unless absent, not less than 
five days before the expiration of the fifty days. The 
trial judge or judges may extend the time for signing 
for a period not exceeding ten days beyond the ex- 
piration of the fifty, but any such extension must be 
endorsed on the bill of exceptions. 

The statute in respect to competency of testimony 
has been supplemented by an additional section with 
sectional numbering to the effect that whenever a 
party or a witness, after testifying orally, die, or is 
beyond the jurisdiction of the court, or can not be 
found after diligent search, or is insane, or is physi- 
cally or mentally incapacitated to testify, or has been 
kept away by the adverse party, if the evidence given 
has been or shall be incorporated into a bill of ex- 
ceptions in the case where such evidence was given, 
as all the evidence given by the party or witness in the 
case, and the bill of exceptions shall have been duly 
signed by the judge or court before whom it was given, 
it may now be read in evidence bj^ either party in a 
further trial of the case. In ease no bill of exceptions 
has been taken or signed, then the evidence of any 
party or witness taken down by any competent, official 
stenographer, may be read in evidence by either party 



326 Orations and Historical Addresses 

on a further trial of the case, and shall be deemed and 
taken as prima facie evidence of what such deceased 
party or witness testified to orally on the former trial. 
If such evidence has not been taken by a stenographer, 
the same may be proven by witnesses who were 
present at the former trial, having knowledge of such 
testimony, but all testimony thus offered is open to 
all objections which might have been taken if the wit- 
ness were personally present. 

Heretofore, a j^arty desiring to appeal his cause to 
the circuit court, was required to enter on the records 
notice of such intention at the term at which the judg- 
ment or order is entered, and within thirty days after 
the rising of the court give an undertaking, but the 
time is now limited to within three days after the 
judgment or order is entered, and within thirty days 
after the entering of such judgment or order upon the 
journal of the court, give the undertaking. The time 
is limited in the same manner to a party in a trust 
capacity who has given bond for the state for the trans- 
mission of transcript, papers and pleadings, to the clerk 
of the circuit court. 

There have been but three amendments to the jurj' 
law. The act exempting from the jury service now in- 
cludes all persons over seventy years of age. In the 
trial of a person charged with a capital offense, after 
the cause has been assigned for trial, and a jury for 
the trial has been drawn, and the cause, for any reason, 
shall be continued to another term of court, the jury 
so drawn shall be discharged and a new jury drawn 
for the trial of the cause. 

The provisions of the act for the appointment of 
jury commissioners now apply to all counties having 
& city of the first class or the first and second grade 



Annual Address 327 

of the second class, which, heing iuterpreted, means 
the counties of Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Lucas 
and Montgomery. Of the jury commissioners none 
shall be an attorney at law in practice, and not more 
than two of the number shall be of the same political 
party. 

Legislatures may come and legislatures may go, but 
like Tennyson's brook, the attempt to increase the fees 
of jurors in magistrate courts, goes on forever. 

A bill with that end in view has appeared in suc- 
cessive legislatures along with one extending the term 
of office of township trustees to three years, notwith- 
standing the then existing constitutional prohibition. 
The fee for jurors before justices of the peace has at 
last been increased from fifty to seventy-five cents. 

The new statutory offenses are limited in number. 
It is made a felony to unlawfully obtain, use, interrupt, 
or delay any message sent through any telegraph or 
telephone company. The unfortunate phraseology of 
the act employed the word "unauthorized," instead of 
"authorized," which necessitated the repeal of the 
original act and the passage of a new one within two 
weeks. 

It is made a misdemeanor to wilfully disturb, by 
disorderly conduct, obscene language, or other means 
to unlawfully interfere with the peace and comfort of 
any passenger upon any passenger train. 

The penalty for an indecent exposure of person, or 
the use of obscene language, has been increased from 
a fine of not more than twenty dollars to two hundred 
dollars, and imprisonment not more than twenty days 
to six months. 

The penalty for unlawfully wearing the badge or but- 



328 Orations and Historical Addresses 

ton of certain military organizations now is made to 
include the Woman's Relief Corps, any ladies' circle 
of the Grand Army of the Republic, or any labor or- 
ganization, in the state of Ohio, and is applicable to 
any known or organized secret society or order. 

The statute which, with Don Quixotic zeal, attacks 
swings and flying horses and whirligigs, now is extend- 
ed to any other device, and prohibits any one from es- 
tablishing a temporary place of business for the sale of 
any article whatsoever, except as a regularly estab- 
lished dealer in such article at his usual place of busi- 
ness, within one-fourth of a mile of the fair ground of 
an agricultural society, while the fair is being held, 
without first having obtained a written permission of 
the society. 

The dehorning of cattle is permitted under the 
cruelty to animals act, but the salmon fish, as distinct 
from the land-locked salmon, and the California sal- 
mon, is no longer protected during the spawning season. 
The fishes in the Lewistown reservoir are more favored 
since it is made a misdemeanor to employ set nets 
and seines to catch fish there within five years. 

To engage in the business of barbering on Sunday 
is now a misdemeanor. 

The penalty for selling or giving away intoxicating 
liquors near the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, at San- 
dusky, is extended to the National Home for Disabled 
Volunteer Soldiers, near Dayton, and the prosecuting 
attorney of the i^olice court is charged with the duty 
of prosecuting all violations of the law. 

It is a misdemeanor to prevent an employe from 
joining or belonging to any lawful labor organization, 
or by coercing, or attempting to coerce employes by 



Annual Address 329 

discharging or tlireateuing to discharge, because of 
their connection with any lawful labor organization. 

The general assembly, two years ago, passed an act 
for the better protection of skilled labor, and for the 
registration of labels, marks, names, or devices, cover- 
ing the products of such labor of associations of work- 
ing men or women. It is made a misdemeanor to use, 
imitate, or display any label for the sale of any such 
goods or merchandise under the conditions of the act. 

A state that has produced such men as Ohio — the 
mother of the three generals of the late war, who com- 
manded our armies, and all the modem presidents,— 
is not ashamed of any other of her products. There is, 
however, no such grade of Ohio cheese as "Ohio skim- 
med." Any manufacturer of cheese, therefore, who 
shall sell or dispose of any cheese without being 
stamped, in full faced capital letters in ordinary stamp- 
ing ink, red, green, purj^le, or violet color, the grade of 
the same, as "Ohio Full Cream," "Ohio State Cheese," 
"Ohio Standard," or "Ohio Skimmed," or who shall 
falsely stamp the same, and any dealer or other person 
who shall remove, deface, or obliterate such stamp 
from any cheese so stamped, shall upon conviction 
thereof, be fined not less than twenty-five dollars nor 
more than one hundred dollars for the first 
offense, and for each subsequent offense not less than 
one hundred dollars, nor more than three hundred dol- 
lars, and pay the costs of prosecution. 

The state, too, with a proper regard for the lives 
and limbs of those who delve in the mines, has made 
it a misdemeanor to use any inferior oils for illumin- 
ating purposes in coal or other mines. 

The general incorporation laws of the state show no 
radical changes of material interest. Perhaps the 



330 Orations and Historical Addresses 

most important is that in regard to the notice pre- 
liminary to a public improvement in cities or villages. 
The notice must be given in the manner provided by 
law for the service of summons in a civil action and 
in the matter of sidewalks, if it appear that the owner 
is a nonresident or that the owner or agent or their 
residence cannot be found, then notice may be given 
by pubUcation. 

The act which was originally intended for the cities 
of Cincinnati and Toledo, as to the improvements at 
intersections of streets, and the two per cent, of total 
cost to be charged to the city, has been made applicable 
to cities of the first grade and third grade of the first 
class, and it is no longer a condition precedent that 
the auditor shall certify that the money is in the 
treasury to meet the expense. In cities of the first" 
and second class no railroad train is permitted to 
remain standing at a street crossing for a longer period 
than two minutes, and to prevent evasion of the spirit 
of the act, by running a train back and forth every two 
minutes, the occupancy of the street by a train within 
the first ten minutes following the two minutes is pro- 
hibited. 

The board of legislation, or council in every mu- 
nicipality is authorized by ordinance to require the 
owners of any street railroad operated by electricity, 
cable, compressed air, or any motive power other than 
horses and mules, to place watchmen at every street 
crossing, intersection or corner, which the board of 
legislation or the council may deem dangerous, and 
may, upon any neglect by penalty in the way of fine 
and imprisonment, or both, or by a penalty of one hun- 
dred dollars recoverable in a civil action. 

The acts relating to the construction and completion 



Annual Address 331 

of water works, in cities of the first grade of the first 
class, and authorizing the expenditure of six millions 
of dollars, and the creation of the park board of the 
city of Cincinnati, evince a growing disposition to 
enlarge the functions of the mayor in the matter of 
appointment. 

So far as private corporations are concerned, stock- 
holders in railroads who refuse to consolidate, may 
arbitrate on certain conditions, and legislation has been 
invoked for the imposition of penalties for violation 
of rates of freight. 

The general subject of protection to labor has re- 
ceived more than ordinary attention from the general 
assembly. Thought has been given to the use of such 
appliances as will not endanger life, and a more rigid 
system of inspection has been introduced. In order 
to give better security to such persons as use and pass 
up and down stairways in or on tenement houses, 
apartment houses, factories, work shops, stores, and 
other rooms of public resort for business or social en- 
joyment, stairways must be provided with a good, sub- 
stantial hand-rail from top to bottom. With singular 
propriety the offices of professional men are men- 
tioned, with the churches. There is not only a penalty 
for neglect, but there is a civil liability for damages. 
There is a singular omission that the act takes effect 
from its passage, and the penalty attaches before op- 
portunity is given to comply with its provisions. 

The legislature also considered the subject of the 
danger to life and limb by the use of unsuitable and 
improper scaffolding, hoisting, and other mechanical 
contrivances in the erection, repair, alteration, or 
painting of buildings ; and provided for a more efficient 
inspection of the heating, lighting, ventilation and san- 



332 Orations and Historical Addresses 

itary arrangements of shops and factories, and the 
means of egress in case of fire, as well as the location 
of the belting, shafting, gearing, or elevators with 
reference to the safety of the employes while engaged 
in work. 

The mechanic's lien upon water craft, buildings, etc., 
is extended to liens for operating, completing or re- 
pairing of gas or oil wells, and affects the interest, 
leasehold or otherwise, of the owner in the lot or land 
on which they may stand. 

Provision is made against accidents on railroads by 
fixing ten hours as a day's work for train men, and per- 
mitting extra pay for the hours for work over ten 
hours. They must be given a rest of eight hours after 
fifteen hours of continuous work, except in cases of 
detention by accident. A penalty of not less than five 
hundred dollars or not more than one thousand dol- 
lars is fixed for the violation of this act. 

The legislation respecting the probate court has 
been almost wholly in regard to procedure and in the 
direction of amplif>dng its jurisdiction. It is now 
made obligatory on the probate court, in all estates 
involving the rights of an idiot, insane person or minor, 
to require a sufficient bond, whether or not such re- 
quest is specified in the will, in which the disposition 
of the property is directed. 

When complaint is now made to the probate court, 
or to the court of common pleas, where the property 
of an estate is concealed or embezzled, and a jury is 
demanded by either party, the court may, forthwith 
reserve the case to the court of common pleas for 
hearing, and determination, and proceed as though the 
complaint had originally been made there. 

Power is given to the court issuing a citation to 



Annual Address - 333 

commit any person who shall refuse or neglect to ap- 
pear, and when an administrator or executor is found 
guilty, the probate court shall remove him. The ad- 
ministrator or executor in favor of whom any such 
judgment shall have been rendered by the probate 
court, may forthwith deliver a transcript to the court 
of common pleas on which execution may issue as in 
other cases. 

The compulsory education act has been modified 
so that in case the board of education, or superin- 
tendent, refuse to grant excuse from attendance in 
school, the parent or guardian shall have the right of 
appeal to the probate court, and the decision shall be 
final. 

Whenever the court appoints a trustee under the 
insolvent debtor act to serve in place of the assignees 
of the debtor, the appointment and qualification of the 
trustee so appointed shall operate as a conveyance of 
all the property originally assigned to the assignee. 

The act providing for the payment of costs by the 
claimant in appeals in road cases in the probate court, 
permits the county commissioners, in their discretion, 
to pay out of the county treasury any part or all of 
any costs that may be adjudged against the defendants. 

In sale of real estate and distribution of proceeds 
for payment of debts, except in proceedings by 
guardians to sell lands to pay debts, when the action 
is determined by the probate court, the judge may 
make the necessary order for the entry of release and 
satisfaction of mortgages and other liens on the real 
estate, and shall enter such release and satisfaction, 
together with a memorandum of the title of the case, 
the character of the proceedings and the volume and 
page of the record, and where recorded, upon the 



334 Orations and Historical Addresses 

record of such mortgage, or other lien, in the recorder's 
ofiBce. 

When the executor or administrator shall now make 
return of his proceedings under the order of sale, the 
court may, if for the best interest of the estate, direct 
that the offer of the purchaser to pay the full amount 
of the purchase money may be accepted, and direct the 
distribution; and the court may direct sale, without 
recourse, of all or any of the notes taken for deferred 
payments, at not less than their face value with ac- 
crued interest, and direct distribution of the proceeds. 

Perhaps no public measure has been received with 
more apparent legislative favor within the last decade 
than what is known as the Australian ballot system. 
It is now on the statute book of thirty-three states and 
territories. Even monarchical England has adopted 
the ballot in a form securing the utmost secrecy. The 
state of Kentucky was the last of the American com- 
monwealths to abandon the viva voce method, and it 
was made a part of the organic law. 

The act to insure the secrecy of the ballot and pre- 
vent fraud and intimidation at the jjolls was only passed 
April 30, 1891. It was amended March 18, 1892, so as 
to except the April and all special elections in hamlets 
and villages not divided into wards, whose population 
was less than thirty-five hundred by the last federal 
census, and certain elections for school directors and 
members of the school board, and all questions to be 
voted on at such April and special elections. This 
amendment was singularly defective in that it left con- 
fusion as to method of the elections thus exempted from 
its operation. It was again amended March 31, 1892, 
by exempting the election of the judge of the court of 
common pleas at the April election, and certain mu- 



^ Annual Address 335 

nicipalities from its operation ; and was again amended 
on the same day touching the election of assessors, and 
with certain exceptions to the operation of the original 
act. 

It is too soon, perhaps, to venture any prediction 
as to the ultimate result of this system. It is as yet 
an experiment; but what is needed, and the people 
will imperatively demand, is stability of legislation in 
regard to our election laws. The elector should no 
more be left in doubt as to the method of voting than 
as to what measure, or the candidates for whom he is 
voting. 

The act changing the mode of procedure and the 
jurisdiction in election contests for judgeships will 
commend itself to the profession. The warrant for 
this legislation will be formed in section 22, article II 
of the constitution, which provides that the general 
assembly shall determine, by law, before what au- 
thority, and in what manner, the trial of contested 
election cases shall be conducted. The supreme court, 
too, in the State v. Marioiv, 15 Ohio St., 114, distinctly 
says that a specific mode of contesting elections in 
this state, having been provided by statute, according 
to the requirement of the constitution, that mode alone 
can be resorted to, in exclusion of the common law 
mode of inquiry by proceedings in quo warranto. The 
statute which gives this special remedy and prescribes 
the mode of its existence binds the state as well as the 
individual. 

This measure was first proposed by the late General 
Durbin Ward, the fourth president of the association, 
and the late General John C. Lee, who, as chairman of 
the committee on judicial reform, urged this reform 
year after year before successive legislatures. 



336 Orations and Historical Addresses 

The act provides that the circuit court shall have 
exclusive original jurisdiction of the contest of elec- 
tions of all common pleas and superior court judges, 
and that the proceedings shall take place in the county 
in which the contestee resides. The supreme court has 
exclusive jurisdiction of the contest of elections of 
circuit court judges and of all state officers. If the 
contestee be a member of the supreme coui-t he shall 
not sit in the determination of the case, nor upon any 
question preliminary or incident thereto, or connected 
with the election in which he was a candidate for judge 
of the supreme court. 

A most serious defect in our legislation is the uni- 
fomi enactment that the particular law shall take 
effect and be in force from and after its passage. It 
is possible that a measure may become a law which 
may have arisen in unpatriotic or selfish purposes, or 
which may affect the code of civil or criminal pro- 
cedure, and very materially modify a principle that 
has been recognized and been a rule of action for 
years. Indeed, statutory offenses may be created from 
which even the innocent and confiding might suffer. 
It may be that every man is expected to know the law, 
but the Utopian period has not been reached when 
every one does know the law. 

There is no little wisdom in that provision of the 
constitution of Indiana that permits no act to take 
effect until the same shall have been published and 
circulated in the several counties of the state by au- 
thority, except in case of emergency, which emergency 
shall be declared in the preamble or in the body of the 
law. 

The constitution of Tennessee declares in like spirit, 
that no law of a general nature shall take effect until 



Annual Address 337 

forty days after its i^assage, unless the same, or the 
caption, shall state that the public requires that it 
should take effect sooner. 

The legislature has passed an act that when a law 
of a penal nature is passed, the Secretary of State 
shall, within ten days after its passage forward to each 
county clerk a certilied copy of the same. 

This is a step in advance, but not a sufficiently ad- 
vanced step. A reasonable time should elapse between 
the passage of an act and the taking effect of that 
act. It is possible that an emergency may arise which 
demands an immediate legislative remedy, but the 
emergency should be both rare and apparent, and 
established in the legislative mind, not by a fair pre- 
ponderance of all the evidence, but beyond a reasonable 
doubt. 

There is no security for a free people except through 
an enlightened public sentiment expressed in legisla- 
tive enactment, or in the form of organic law. A 
faithful adherence to a written constitution then be- 
comes the only guarantee of public order. There is 
nothing else that will jn'eserve the sacredness of our 
homes or the peace of our streets. The evils of local 
legislation were most apparent under the constitution 
of 1802, in which there was no restraining provision. 
For one half century laws having a general subject 
matter, and, therefore, of a "general nature," were 
frequently limited expressly in their operation, to cer- 
tain localities, to the exclusion of other poi'tions of 
the state. "This naturally led," says one of the purest 
judges who ever sat on any bench, "to imprudent legis- 
lation enacted by the votes of legislators who were 
indifferent in the premises, because their own imme- 
diate constituents were not to be affected by it. To 

22 



338 Orations and Historical Addresses 

arrest and for the future prevent the evil, this pro- 
vision was inserted in the present constitution." It 
is true that it has been held that the provision that 
all laws of a general nature shall have a uniform opera- 
tion throughout the state does not inhibit appropriate 
local legislation. The difficulty is not in appropriate 
local acts. 

There is need of restraint, however, to that growing 
tendency of the last decade to evade the constitutional 
prohibition of special laws when general legislation will 
accomplish every purpose. The advance sheets of the 
session laws of the seventieth general assembly thus 
far issued show that of two hundred and seventy-three 
acts designated as general in their character, not less 
than one hundred and eighteen are local in their ap- 
plication. 

The very first of the session laws authorizes the 
council of villages having a census of two thousand, 
one hundred and fifty to issue bonds in any sum not 
exceeding five thousand dollars, for the purpose of 
defraying the necessary expenses of the government 
of such village, while the last of the public session 
laws, as published, confers authority on any city with 
a census population of not less than thirteen thousand, 
four hundred nor more than thirteen thousand, five 
hundred to issue bonds in any sum not exceeding one 
hundred thousand dollars, for the purpose of the gen- 
eral improvement and benefit of the city. The inter- 
vening pages are largely filled with legislation in the 
form of enabling statutes in favor, for instance, of 
villages with a census population of not less than 
eight hundred and forty nor more than eight hundred 
and fifty, and others with a census population of not 
less than eight hundred and fifty and not more than 



Annual Address 339 

eight Imudred and sixty inhabitants; municipalities 
with a census population of seven thousand, one hun- 
dred and forty-one, and others not less than seven 
thousand, eight hundred and seventy-five, and not more 
than seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty-five 
inhabitants; townships with a census population of 
not less than one thousand, six hundred and twenty- 
seven nor more than one thousand, six hundred and 
thirty-seven, and others with a census population of 
not less than one thousand, five hundred and thirty 
nor more than one thousand, five hundred and thirty- 
six inhabitants; counties with a census population of 
thirty-five thousand, four hundred and sixty-two, and 
others with a census population of not more than 
forty-eight thousand, six hundred nor less than forty- 
eight thousand, five hundred inhabitants. 

These instances are not selected, but taken in the 
order of passage. The session laws of Ohio published 
by state authority, specify on the margin of the page 
containing the original act, the locality to which this 
legislation will apply, namely, Girard and Mansfield, 
as to the first and last pages, here cited, and the vil- 
lages of Weston and Malta, the municipalities of Fre- 
mont and Tiffin, the township of Ridge in VanWert 
county, and Mohican in Ashland county, and the coun- 
ties of Erie and Butler, in consecutive order. 

This review is made simply to call attention to the 
tendency which is not only manifest in the legislation 
of our own state, but in the legislation of all states 
of the Union. There are, it is true, new demands 
growing out of an increasing population and the in- 
ventive ingenuity of man. Changed conditions alone 
cani be met by adaptive legislation, and legislative 
action only can be effective when it recognizes and 



340 Orations and Historical Addresses 

expresses the customs which society is endeavoring to 
make uniform. There was no little sound philosophy 
in the utterance of Solon, the law giver, who, when 
asked why he did not give the Athenians better laws, 
replied that he gave them the laws best fitted for them. 
Sir Matthew Hale, in a tract which he left behind him, 
entitled "Considerations touching the Amendment of 
the Law," wisely says: "We must remember that 
laws were not made for their own sakes, but for the 
Bakes of those who were to be guided by them; and 
though it is true that they are and ought to be sacred, 
yet if they be or are become uuuseful for their end, 
they must either be amended, if it may be, or new laws 
be substituted and the old repealed, so it be done regu- 
larly, deliberately, and so forth, only as the exigencies 
or convenience justly demands it; and in this respect 
the saying is true, "Solus populi suprema lex esto." 
It is a wise people that regards with supreme reverence 
the obligations of a written constitution. 

The ordinance of 1787, which has exerted such a 
mighty and permanent influence upon the people of 
the northwestern states, prohibited legislative inter- 
ference with private contracts, and secured to the 
people, as an inalienable inheritance, the benefit of 
habeas corpus, of trial by juiy, of judicial proceedings 
according to the common law, and of a representative 
government. This prohibition has been to a great 
population the safeguard of the public morals and of 
individual rights. Power is of an encroaching nature, 
and should be effectually restrained from passing the 
limits assigned to it. The English parliament was 
omnipotent to regulate the succession to the crown in 
the reign of Henry VIII and William III ; to alter the 
established religion of the land in the reign of Henry 



Annual Address 341 

VIII, and his three children, and to create afresh even 
the constitution of the kingdom and of parliament 
themselves by the act of Union and the several statutes 
for triennial and septennial elections. It is stated 
in the Madison papers, "that experience in all the 
states has evinced a powerful tendency in the legisla- 
ture to absorb all power into its vortex. This was the 
real source of danger to the American constitution, 
and suggested the necessity of giving every defensive 
authority to the other departments consistent with 
republican principles." 

Chief Justice Marshall, in the celebrated case of 
Marbury v. Madison, declares: "The constitution is 
either a superior and paramount law unchangeable by 
ordinaiy means, or it is on a level with ordinary legis- 
lative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the 
legislature shall please to alter it. If the former part 
of the alternatives be true, then a legislative act con- 
trary to the constitution is not a law ; if the latter part 
be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts 
on the part of the people to limit a power in its nature 
illimitable." 

"Our American system of government," said the 
president of the American Bar Association in his ad- 
dress at Boston, "has been distinguished from all 
others by its giving through its wi'itten constitution 
such guarantees of individual right as no sudden change 
in public sentiment, no sudden exigency in public af- 
fairs, could break over or break down. But consti- 
tutions are nothing unless they are enforced in the 
spirit in which they were conceived. In them, more 
than in any other thing of human institution, 'the 
letter killeth.' The courts may be relied on for their 
faithful interpretation, but that our legislatures may 



342 Orations and Historical Addresses 

be equally true, can be secured only by the constant 
insistence on the part of the profession, as the great 
leader of public opinion, at least as put in form by 
legislative action, that no constitutional principle 
ought ever to be undermined or evaded in statute law 
on a plea of public necessity. There is no necessity 
so imperious as supporting the constitution which we 
are bound by an oath as citizens and by our oaths as 
members of the bar. Its formalities, its delays, its 
limitations, are the best fruits of a thousand years of 
Anglo-Saxon history. The omnipotence of the British 
parliament our fathers refused to produce on Amer- 
ican soil, and it belongs to us to keep it out as well 
in substance as it is in fonn." 

It is not the part of wisdom to remove the ancient 
land-marks which our fathers have set. 

There is, too, a tendency on the part of legislative 
authority to impose duties on the courts not strictly 
judicial in their character, and that can not be re- 
garded without concern by any thoughtful observer. 
It not only takes from the court the time that rightfully 
belongs to the discharge of its proper duties, which 
is secondary, but such political appointees will create 
in the community an element which, Argus-eyed and 
Briareus-amied, will dictate the very members of the 
court itself. When the court of Star Chamber was 
abolished, effectual care was taken to remove all ju- 
dicial power out of the hands of the King's Privy 
Council, because it was then evident from recent in- 
stances, that it might be inclined to pronounce that for 
law which was most agreeable to the prince or his 
officers. The very foundation of the social fabric is 
threatened when public confidence in the integrity and 
impartiality of the bench is even weakened by the sus- 



Annual Address 343 

picion that political motives and political influence 
determine who shall administer justice. 

Blackstone declares that in the distant and separate 
existence of the judicial power in a peculiar body of 
men consists one main preservative of public liberty, 
and when it is joined with the legislative power, the 
life, liberty and property of the subject would be in 
the hands of arbitrary judges, whose decision would 
then be regulated only by their own opinions, and not 
by any fundamental principle of law, which, though 
legislature may depart from, yet judges are bound to 
observe. 

Mr. Chief Justice Taney, in the last judicial paper 
from his pen, and printed after his death, with the 
assent of all the metnbers of the court, said, "These 
cardinal principles of free government had not only 
been long established in England but also in the United 
States, from the time of their earliest colonization, and 
guided the American people in framing and adopting 
the present constitution. And it is the duty of the 
court to maintain it unimpaired, so far as it may have 
the power. And while it executes for us all the judicial 
powers entrusted to it, the court will carefully abstain 
from exercising any power that is not strictly judicial 
in its character, and which is not clearly confided to 
it by the constitution." 

The law must be invested with a supreme majesty. 
We are a proud, self-conscious democracy, and there 
must be new defences for freedom against the perilous 
activities quickened into life by its own fearless spirit. 
The greatest security will be in a universal respect 
for constituted authority. 

The lasting gloiy of a nation will be found in an 



344 Orations and Historical Addresses 

upright bench rather than in a blameless prince. It 
alone will survive the mutations of time. Lord Chief 
Justice Crewe in his celebrated opinion respecting the 
Earldom of Oxford, said, "there must be an end of 
names and dignities; — for where is Bohun? Where is 
Mowbray I Where is Mortimer! Nay, which is more 
and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They are en- 
tombed in the urns and sepulchers of mortality." 

There is no more enduring page in English history 
than when one of her judges resisted the arbitrary 
exactions of a sovereign who wished to introduce 
despotism under the form of judicial procedure, and 
declared in words that still ring through the gener- 
ations, that when the case happened he would do that 
which is proper for a judge to do. He carried the pe- 
tition of right, which recognized the liberties of 
Englishmen, notwithstanding the violence of Charles 
I, and deserves the magnificent eulogy of Lord Bacon, 
who said that "without Sir Edward Coke the law by 
this time had been like a ship without ballast." 

Religion, morality and knowledge were declared by 
the great ordinance, as essential to good government. 
With these fundamental principles as the basis of 
free, representative government, and with an educated 
citizenship, revering the arts and maxims and tradi- 
tions which brought this people from the colonial 
period through the time of the revolution, and added 
star after star to the crowded galaxy of the flag, there 
will be nothing to prevent the onward march to perfect 
unity and imperial power. 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

We are told that as Columbus sailed toward that 
New World he gave to Castile and Leon, that flowers 
and carved wood came floating about his vessel, while 
resting upon the mast-head were birds of the most 
beautiful plumage. This daring navigator of un- 
known seas imagined himself at the threshold of East- 
ern Asia, and that he was about to realize his life 
dream of finding the Indian Empire. He was at the 
gateway of the New World. He had discovered an 
infinite continent which shoi;ld forever be dedicated 
to modern democracy and a perpetual home for the 
quickening principle of human liberty. 

Four hundred years have passed since those event- 
ful days in October, and while America, for centuries, 
has guarded the liberty, industry, education and happi- 
ness of its dependent millions the promises come to a 
mighty continent— like the flowers and carved wood 
and birds of beautiful plumage to Columbus on ap- 
proaching land— of even a greater civilization which 
yet awaits its people under the blessings of liberty 
and order and law. 

In this supreme hour in our history it will not be 
forgotten that Christopher Columbus merits the un- 
fading glory of the discovery of America— an achieve- 
ment which will grow with every passing century. 
Seneca may have long before predicted another 

Delivered Before the People of Cincinnati, at Music Hall, 
October 21, 1892, on the Occasion of the Four Hundredth 
Anniversary of the Discovery of America. 

[345] 



346 Orations and Historical Addresses 

hemisphere, but it was left to this man of Genoa to 
present it to humanity. It has been truthfully said 
that numberless Norsemen rest in nameless graves, 
but the name which is in all hearts and on all tongues 
as the discoverer, is the one at the prow of the Santa 
Maria looking westward, and whose face looks calmly 
down from the walls of the council chamber in the 
Municipal Palace at Genoa, and whose marble figure 
fitly entombed in the palms of the Piazza Acquaverde 
receives forever the kneeling tribute of the New 
World— Christopher Columbus. The story of dis- 
coveries and settlements on the shores of America- 
then called Vineland — may have been preserved in the 
Scandinavian Sagas and the voyages of Leif and Erick- 
son may have been familiar around the Yule logs of 
the Icelanders, but it was his fortune to solve one 
of the world's greatest problems, and to give, not in 
the spirit of adventure, but of dedication to a noble 
purpose, a hemisphere to Christendom. The name of 
Amerigo Vespucci has been given to the continent, 
but the name of Columbus has been given to posterity. 
The problem of geographical extension began to 
attract attention even before the birth of Columbus. 
It increased with the expansion of knowledge. The 
mariner's compass stimulated a bolder seamanship 
while the Portuguese extended their discoveries along 
the coast of Africa. These discoveries, which had been 
begun before the end of the fourteenth century, had 
even been extended before the birth of Columbus as 
far as to Cape Verde. There were two theories of 
geographical discovery entertained by cosmographers : 
one maintained that the continent of Africa extended 
to the pole, and that the great equatorial belt was a 
permanent barrier to exploration and discovery: the 



Christopher Columbus 3-47 

other rested ou the supposition that there was an 
equatorial ocean girdling the earth, and led to the 
view that Asia could be reached by this ocean. The 
Spaniards adopted the former while the Portug-uese 
adhered to the latter theory. Immediately after the 
beginning of the second half of the fifteenth century 
there was an increased interest, both in the theory of 
discovery and the necessary instruments for accom- 
plishing distant voyages. Inventions and improve- 
ments in the instruments for detennining speed, and 
the direction of sailing, and ascertaining latitude and 
longitude, were being made, and there was a general 
tendency to the theory of the sphericity of the earth 
in the practical form of globes. It seems strange that 
Italy, after the lapse of centuries, should again be- 
come mistress, for while that countiy produced a 
revival in every other department of science and of 
philosophy, Italy produced a revolution in the art 
of navigation and the science of geography. It sup- 
plied the mariner's compass and many improved instru- 
ments for nautical observation as applied to the art 
of navigation. Spain and Portugal were the maritime 
countries, and while they divided their patronage, they 
made the chief instruments of their glory— Colimabus 
of Genoa, Vespuccius of Florence, and Cabot of Venice, 
all Italians. 

Columbus was the master of the geography of the 
ancients; of the form of the earth; of the bearing of 
tlie Scriptures upon the existence of other lands and 
peoples; of the dreams of the Italians. These were 
the influences which were brought to bear on the mind 
of Columbus, and gradually took possession of it. To 
this he added a religious fervor and a conviction that 
he was a divinely appointed instrument for the accom- 



348 Orations and Historical Addresses 

plishment of this great work. He was familiar with 
cosmographical writers; he loved the Psalms of David; 
he saw visions of the future and heard heavenly voices 
telling him, in the language of the old prophecy, that 
God would cause his name to be wonderfully resounded 
throughout the earth and give him the keys of the 
ocean which are closed with strong chains. 

Columbus was born in the year 1446, at Genoa, Italy, 
of a family of good social position in the aristocratic 
Republic of that name. He devoted himself, while at 
the University of Paria, to the subjects of astrology, 
geometry, and kindred branches, and to those studies 
most attractive to a youth from an important seaport. 
These studies presaged his future career as a navi- 
gator. He was more or less engaged in a seafaring 
life, and devoted much time to the making of maps and 
other kindred employments. In presenting his case to 
the Court of Spain, in 1492, he himself declared, among 
his other qualifications for undertaking such a voy- 
age, that he had sailed from England to the coasts of 
Guinea, and also declared, in another place, that in one 
of his voyages he sailed beyond "Thule." Many 
scholars assert that it is impossible to believe that there 
was even any perfect identification with "Thule" of 
any actual body of land, but like the lost Atlantis, it 
floated in the dim beyond and existed only in the mists 
of an unexplored sea. It has been urged that Colum- 
bus first heard in "Thule," or Iceland, the wonderful 
story of the Norsemen and it was this which prompted 
him to set sail on his voyage. 

Columbus sought assistance from Portugal for a 
voyage to be made to Asia by the westerly route, but 
the real trouble in Portugal, as it was so long in Spain, 
was the demand that Columbus should be made vice- 



ChiistopJier Colmnbus 349 

general of all the lands which he should discover, and 
admiral in the navies of the empire under whose flag 
he sailed. After the rejection of his proposal by 
Portugal he set out for Spain, and an entry in the 
books of the treasurer of their Catholic majesties, ou 
May 5, 1487, shows that his first gratuity was issued 
to "Christobal Colomo, a stranger," in an amount 
equivalent to about two hundred and fifty dollars. 
This was the date of his allegiance to Spain, and at 
the end of five years, May 5, 1492, the first preparations 
were made for his voyage, in the little town of Palos, 
where he became wholly confirmed to Spain and Span- 
ish citizenship. It is not wonderful that the courts 
of Portugal and Spain should have hesitated to accept 
the seemingly magnificent olfers of Columbus. The 
Junta of Portugal and the Council of Salamanca 
doubted, and they were composed of the most learned 
men of their time. Columbus was an enthusiast. 
There are many, even to-day, who know the road to 
El Dorado, and who can point out the glittering towers 
and gleaming pinnacles, as they are already revealed 
to the eye of sight as well as faith. Macaulay well 
remarks "that an acre in Middlesex is worth a pi-in- 
cipality in Utopia." The revival of learning, too, had 
dissipated many of the mists of the poets and dreamers, 
of astrologers and alchemists, of crusaders and ad- 
venturers. 

The geographical extension of the realm, by means 
of exploration, was the absorbing purpose of Portugal 
at that time, while Spain was extending her realm by 
conquest. The united power had been summoned to 
accomplish the glorious work of the final expulsion of 
the crescent from Spain. The castles of Castile daily 
advanced from town to town, and from outpost to out- 



350 Orations and Historical Addresses 

post, and the lions of Aragon vied in proud emulation 
in the last death struggle of Goth and Moor. It is not 
surprising that there should have been some indiffer- 
ence to the appeals of Columbus when every energ^^v 
was bent upon one of the great problems of a thousand 
years, and when almost every resource of men and 
money was exhausted for the victory just at hand. 

The fall of Granada made possible the enterprise 
of Cohmibus. The first days of January, 1492, found 
Spain in the full enjoyment of a triumph which had 
been the aim of its policy for seven hundred years. 
Castile, Aragon and Leon were united under the joint 
rule of their sovereigns, and the Moor was expelled 
from Spanish ground. The time for Columbus had 
now come. The celebrated Court of Salamanca af- 
forded him an opportunity of convincing a Pew in- 
fluential men, and he had gradually gathered to him- 
self a little circle of almost unbounded influence. The 
great need was money. Tradition tells us that the 
money was obtained from the treasury of Aragon, 
although as a loan to Castile, but it appears that the 
treasurer of the ecclesiastical revenues in Aragon made 
the loan from his private revenues, and in the interest 
of Castile alone. It is an historical fact that Castile 
alone participated in the voyage of discovery, and that 
the benefits which actually accrued went to Castilians 
only, the Aragonese being excluded from all share in 
the results. 

Columbus was now made admiral in anticipation, 
and the agreement between him and the Court was 
drawn up and signed April 17, 1492. There were fur- 
ther agreements and honors on April 30th and May 
8th and on May 12th he left Granada for Palos. On 
Friday, August 3, 1492, the little fleet, under favoring 



Christopher Columbus 351 

breezes, moved majestically out of the harbor of Palos 
through the mouth of the Odiel river, amidst the 
tears of friends and the benediction of the church, to 
traverse unknown and illimitable waters. The chim- 
ing of the bells from Huela's steeple grew fainter and 
fainter, until it was finally lost to the ears of the sailors. 
Friday, the day on which he set sail, had always been 
regarded as a day of evil and the superstition has sur- 
vived the centuries, and yet Columbus chose it, believ- 
ing that instead of the day being accursed, it had been 
blessed by holy sacrifice : by the crucifixion that brought 
redemption; by the victoiy of Godfrey de Bouillon that 
delivered the holy sepulcher; by the recovery of 
Granada from Islamism and the redemption of Spain 
from the profaners of Christianity. 

Columbus did not set sail for America, nor for the 
unexplored islands of the great sea, but for the western 
coast of Africa. He sailed southward to the islands 
off the coasts of Africa, and in a due west course from 
the Canary group, until the seventh of October, when 
he changed his course for a more southerly direction 
by reason of the indications afforded by such natural 
phenomena as the sea-drift and flight of birds. The 
first land was discovered in the Bahama group on 
Friday, October 12, 1492. During his cruising he 
touched upon the more important islands in the group 
— Cuba and Hisi)aniola, or Hayti, and reached the Port 
of Palos on Friday, the fifteenth day of March, 1493. 

The reception of Columbus on his return to Spain 
has been perpetuated by the brush of the painter, as 
well as by the pen of the historian. The Court of 
Ferdinand and Isabella was arrayed in all its splendor, 
and united the pomp of royalty with the impressive 
dignity of the high services of the Latin Church. The 



352 Orations and Historical Addresses 

great discoverer presented the Indians, the bright- 
colored birds and the gold, which he had brought from 
the islands of the seas, while the slowly-chanted, glori- 
ous service of praise and thanksgiving swelled within 
the royal chapel. Three voyages were subsequently 
made, and after one he was sent to Spain in ignominy 
and chains. He died May 20, 1506, deprived of almost 
all the honors so splendidly won, and without even 
the consolation that his fame would be safe with 
after ages. Even the New World which he had dis- 
covered was about to receive the name of a rival 
voyager, and the great pathfinder was almost forgot- 
ten. 

To Christopher Columbus belongs the surpassing 
glory of opening America to civilization. He must 
remain one of the greatest figures in history, and the 
country which he honored with his services and those 
which he discovered, after the lapse of four hundred 
years, vie with each other in doing justice to his 
memory. Ghoulish criticism cannot disturb the dead- 
yet living Columbus. 

It has been well observed "that there is a certain 
meddlesome spirit, which, in the garb of learned re- 
search, goes prying about the traces of histoiy, casting 
down its monuments, and marring and mutilating its 
fairest trophies. Care should be taken to vindicate 
great names from such pernicious erudition. It de- 
feats one of the most salutary purposes of history, 
that of furnishing examples of what human genius and 
laudable ambition may accomplish." 

With the name of Columbus there will always be 
associated that of Isabella, who was one of the purest 
spirits that ever ruled over the destinies of a nation. 
The historian, in speaking of her, says, that had she 



Christopher Columbus 353 

been spared, her benignant influence would have pre- 
vented many a scene of horror in the colonization of 
the New World, and might have softened the lot of 
its native inhabitants. As it is, her fair name will 
ever shine with celestial radiance in the dawning of 
its history. 

Nothing in human history has a touch of greater 
pathos than the dying hours of this great man. He 
was even willing to raise himself from a bed of penury 
and despair to place himself at the head of an army 
of Spanish crusaders to wrest the city of David fi'om 
the hated Moslemite. A cniel destiny had consigned 
him to a room in a little hotel, with no decoration save 
the chains which had bound him as the seal of a king's 
ingratitude. He lay on a bed of pain— forgotten by 
those whom he had enriched, and by the country he 
had honored— as he watched the advancing shadows 
that were darkening the world, and noted the roseate 
hues that revealed the breaking of the eternal day. 
He fell into the last sleep, and his great soul, tempest- 
tossed and tempest-torn, like his own Santa Maria on a 
wide and restless ocean, at last found the haven of a 
peaceful rest. 

The death of the great navigator produced a pro- 
found sensation in Spain, and it was only then that 
the sovereign realized what glory he had reflected 
on the country. The funeral was celebrated with 
much pomp, and the body interred with great 
civic honors in the parochial church at Segovia. Thus 
was then manifested the respectful remembrance in 
which the Spanish people held the hero who had dis- 
covered the New World and had been the first to plant 
the standard of the cross in that land. After seven 
years the remains were transferred to the Carthusian 

23 



354 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Monastery, in Seville, when, in the chapel of Santo 
Christo, the body was committed to the sepulchre for 
a Becond time. It remained there for twenty-three 
years when Don Diego, the son and successor of Co- 
lumbus, died and was entombed by the side of his 
father in the monastery. The bodies of both father 
and son, ten years afterwards, were exhumed and 
transferred to Hispaniola, where they were re-interred 
in the chapel of the Cathedral of San Domingo. It 
was fitting that his body should rest in the soil of the 
land which he had discovered, but when Hispaniola was 
ceded to France by Spain at the termination of the 
war between these countries in 1795, the remains were 
again committed to the Cathedral of Havana, in the 
island of Cuba, that they might sleep under the flag 
of Spain. The dust of Christopher Columbus should 
find a final resting place under the majestic dome of 
the CajDitol of the United States of America where a 
great Republic, mighty in its perfect unity, will guard 
with tender and reverential care the ashes of the great 
discoverer who gave a continent to human freedom 
and the rights of man. His body there, at least, will 
be safe from foreign invasion or domestic foe, for that 
Capitol is secure in the affections of a patriotic people 
and millions of men will surround it with a living 
defence which the armed powers of the nations can 
neither penetrate nor destroy. 

It awakens much reflection when we read how the 
remains of Columbus, after the lapse of three hundred 
years, were received at San Domingo as national relics, 
and with civil and military pomp and the high religious 
ceremonials of the Church of Rome, while from this 
very island lie was carried to Spain, loaded with 
ignominious chains and ruined, apparently, in both 



Christopher Cohimbus 355 

fame and fortune. "Such honors," says one alluding 
to this same subject, "it is true, are nothing to the 
dead, nor can they atone to the heart, now dust and 
ashes, for all the wrongs and sorrows it may have 
suffered, but they speak volumes to the illustrious, 
yet slandered and persecuted living, encouraging them 
bravely to bear with present injuries, by showing them 
how true merit outlives all calumny, and receives its 
after reward in the admiration of after ages." 

The first daring voyage of Columbus involved all 
the glory that lay in it for him as the discoverer of 
a new world. The three subsequent voyages brought 
only labor and heaviness, and like many men who are 
prominent in a signal field, he met persecutions and 
penalties, and the life distinguished by the greatest 
event in modern times closed only in sadness and de- 
spair. The discovery of America, however, stimulated 
other voyages, while to South America, and especially 
on the Pacific coast, where gold was found, there was 
a large emigration. The lust of dominion in the mari- 
time nations led to the occupation of the New World. 
Italy, which furnished the discoverer, made no attempt 
to plant her colonies, while Spain and Portugal, 
France and England partitioned it in their ambitious 
conquests. Spain, naturally from the discovery of 
Columbus and an expedition fitted out under royal 
patronage, took the largest share in territory, and 
was followed by France, who made a great effort by 
planting her standard on the waters of the St. Law- 
rence, to achieve a title to a dominion that would have 
made her the most powerful nation in western Europe. 
Indeed as early as 1673 two French missionaries pene- 
trated from Canada into the Mississippi Valley and 
realized the opportunity for extending French domin- 



356 Orations and Historical Addresses 

ion over a region of wonderful extent and surpassing 
fertility. La Salle erected a column on the banks of 
the Mississippi to which was affixed the arms of France, 
and declared, amidst the chanting of the Te Deum, 
that in the name of the Most High, Mighty, Invincible 
and Victorious Prince, Louis the Great, by the grace 
of God, King of France and Navarre, thirteenth in 
that line, and his successors to the crown, he took pos- 
session of the whole country along the Mississippi and 
the territory along the rivers which discharge them- 
selves therein from its source. This forest was virtu- 
ally held by France for more than two hundred and 
fifty years, and indeed until the victory over Montcalm 
by "Wolfe on the heights of Quebec. England was 
tliird in territorial expanse in the New World, 
while Portugal, whose maritime power at that 
time extended to Asia and Africa, held possession of 
the vast area of Brazil. England made her first set- 
tlements in Virginia, in 1607, and in New England, 
in 1620, and held the Colonies until they secured their 
independence by the Declaration of Independence in 
1776. For two and one-half centuries these maritime 
countries held to their divisions of America, and the 
sovereignty of Europe extended over all. France was 
compelled to abanidon the most magnificent empire 
of modern times, while in the last half of the eighteenth 
century, England had increased her possessions by 
the acquisition of the vast empire between the St. 
Lawrence river and the Behring Straits. Spain held 
her own, while little Portugal, with much of the spirit 
of her Prince Henry, the navigator and patron of 
geographical discovery, still continued in possession 
of the Brazils. 

The rays of the coming sun tint the horizon with 



Christopher Columbus 357 

golden hues until soon homes and orchards, and wood- 
land and meadows rejoice in the full sunlight. The 
institutions of constitutional government and indi- 
vidual freedom which were planted on the shores of 
the Atlantic between the capes of Virginia and the 
rockbound coast of New England have extended in 
parallel lines across a continent to where California, 
with her snow-capped diadem, sits Empress of the Seas. 
They have become intrenched in a continent. Mon- 
archy could have no safe lodgment in a soul where 
there were no traditions and no ideas of feudalism to 
restrict the growth of freedom. 

The colonies of Spain in America, therefore, be- 
came a part of the nation which Isabella helped to 
found, and to-day Spain bears no more rule on con- 
tinents, and holds no more territory in this hemisphere 
than the islands where Columbus first planted the cross. 
The House of Braganza established another Portugal 
on the imperial estate of Brazil, and with the exile 
of Dom Pedro from his throne there perished the last 
of monarchy in the New World. Except the incon- 
siderable colonies of the Guineas, the whole southern 
continent is held by its people and in their possession 
and control. 

The British possessions in America are rather de- 
pendencies, in name, than an integral part of the em- 
pire. The St. Lawrence, as it moves toward the ocean, 
cannot and will not divide a people with a common 
language, with common traditions and whose history 
is the history of the Anglo-Saxon race. The pathway 
of these two great nations must be in the direction of 
peace, but the time will come when an ocean bound 
Eepublic will proclaim by its very policy that a free 
representative government is a government by the 



358 Orations and Historical Addresses 

people, and that a government to be lasting and per- 
manent must rest upon the consent of the governed. 
The surest defence of. a free people must rest in the 
honor, the virtue and love of its citizens. 

Christopher Columbus did not give a new world 
to Castile and Leon so much as he gave a new world 
to humanity. Nearly three hundred years had passed 
from the time that discoverers set foot upon the islands 
of the western continent before the Republic was born. 
It was not for the gold of nations, nor the glory of kings 
that a virgin hemisphere was found in these bound- 
less seas. It was for the superlative idea of self-gov- 
ernment. It was that the republican idea should take 
the place of the monarchical idea. 

Columbus died in ignorance of the grandeur of his 
discovery. He went down to the grave with the con- 
viction that he had merely opened a new way to the 
old resorts of opulent commerce, and had discovered 
some of the wild regions of the east. He supposed 
Hispaniola to be the ancient Ophir which had been 
visited by the ships of Solomon, and that Cuba and 
neighboring land were but remote parts of Asia. What 
visions of glory, says his best eulogist, would have 
broken upon his mind could he have known that he 
had indeed discovered a new continent equal to the 
whole world in magnitude and separated by two vast 
oceans from all the earth hitherto known to civilized 
man: and how would his magnanimous spirit have 
been consoled, amidst the afflictions of age and the 
cares of penuiy, the neglect of a fickle public, and the 
injustice of an ungrateful king, could he have con- 
templated the splendid empires which were to spread 



Christopher Columbus 359 

over the beautiful worlds he had discovered: aud the 
natious, aud tougues, and languages, which were to fill 
its lands with his renown, and revere and bless his 
name to the latest posterity. 



THE AMERICAN FLAG 

Commander and Companions of the Loyal Legion: 

A sailor boy, sixteen years of age, on the twenty- 
fifth day of November, 1783, climbed the flag staff at 
Fort George, at the foot of Broadway, New York, 
and hauling down the British flag that had floated 
there for more than seven years, unfurled in its place 
the flag of the United States. The historian says 
that as the white sails moved down the Narrows and 
bore away from the shores the last armed enemy, there 
were thousands of eyes that followed them seaward 
until the last speck of canvas disappeared in the 
horizon. Then a thousand voices that had long been 
silent broke forth into cheer after cheer, and a thou- 
sand hearts that had been despondent beat high with 
the inspiration of freedom, and the consciousness that 
the work of the Revolution had ended. 

The king in his address from the throne hoped that 
Great Britain might not feel the evils of dismember- 
ment of so great an empire, and that America might 
realize how essential monarchy is to the enjoyment 
of constitutional liberty. 

More than one hundred years have passed since that 
day in November, and while England may not have 
felt the evils of dismemberment, America has certainly 
not realized that monarchy is at all essential to the 
enjoyment of constitutional liberty. The flag of the 

Response to a Toast at the Tenth Annual Dinner of the 
Commandery of Ohio, Military Order of the Loyal Legion, 
Grand Hotel, Cincinnati, May"3, 1893. 
[360] 



The American Flag 361 

United States is the emblem of a Republic, still pros- 
perous, united and free. 

It is most interesting to trace the history of the flag 
from the early colonial period. By the act of parlia- 
ment ratifying the treaty of the two kingdoms of Scot- 
land and England, January 16, 1707, it was formally 
prescribed that the crosses of St. Andrew and St. 
George should be conjoined and used in all flags, 
banners, standards and ensigns, both at sea and on 
land. The old Union flag of England had been in use 
with the colonies until the second day of January, 1776. 
The practice had been introduced into the continental 
army as early as July 23, 1775, of distinguishing the 
diflferent grades by means of a stripe or ribbon, and 
on July 24, 1775, it was directed by an order from 
the headquarters of the anny, at Cambridge, to dis- 
tinguish the major from brigadier-general, that the 
major-general sh'ould wear a broad purple ribbon. A 
committee was also appointed by congress to consider 
the subject of a proper flag. 

The flag then, which assumed something of a national 
character, was raised for the first time on January 
2, 1776, at the camp in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 
honor of the organization of the new continental army. 
The king's address had just been received in Boston, 
copies of which Lord Howe, the commander of the 
British forces, caused to be sent, by a flag of truce, to 
"Washington, at Cambridge. When the Union flag, as 
it was then termed, was raised in the American camp, 
it was received with loud cheers and the discharge of 
artillery, so that the English troops imagined that it 
was the evidence of submission to the Sovereign. 

Washington, in a letter dated at Cambridge, Janu- 
ary 4, 1776, to his military secretary, says, that "We 



362 Orations and Historical Addresses 

are at length favored with a sight of His Majesty's 
most gracious speech, breathing sentiments of tender- 
ness and compassion for his deluded xVmerican sub- 
jects ; and farcical enough, we gave great joy to them, 
without knowing or intending it, for on that day, the 
day which gave being to the new army, but before the 
proclamation came to hand, we had hoisted the Union 
flag, in compliment to the United Colonies. But, be- 
hold ! it was received in Boston as a token of the deep 
impression the speech had made upon us, and as a 
signal of submission." 

In the British Annual Register for 1776 there is an 
account of the arrival of a copy of the King's speech, 
and how it was publicly burned, and that the colonists 
on that occasion changed their color from a plain red 
ground, which they had hitherto used, to a flag with 
thirteen stripes, as a symbol of the number and union 
of the colonies. 

The flag raised that day was one of thirteen stripes 
—seven red and six white— with the crosses of St. 
George and St. Andrew in the upper corner. The 
coat-of-arms of the Washington family was composed 
of alternate red and white stripes, with blue stars 
above them. There had been an attempt for some 
time to combine the flag of the mother country with 
the colonial colors. In Trumbull's picture of the battle 
of Bunker Hill, General Putnam had placed upon the 
old red flag, in the place of the British Union, the flag 
of the Massachusetts cruisers, a white field with a 
green pine tree in the center. 

It has been contended that the provincial army raised 
no flag at the engagement of Bunker Hill, while some 
say that there was simply a plain white sheet, and 
others that a standard, bearing upon the scanty sur- 



The American Flag 363 

face only a tree, was seeu waving over the redoubt. 
Tradition, however, has handed down the fact that 
there was a flag, and a red one, which was displayed 
from the general's tent as the signal for battle. On 
Tuesday morning, July 18, 1775, the day after the 
battle, all the Continental troops, under the immediate 
command of General Putnam, assembled at Prospect 
Hill when the declaration of the continental congress 
was read, and the standard lately sent to General Put 
nam was unfurled, having the motto on one side, "An 
Appeal to Heaven,'.' and on the other side, the words 
"Qui transtulit, sustbiet." 

An extract from a letter of the captain of an Englisli 
transport, written from Boston, January 17, 1776, 
speaks of having seen the rebels' camp in the distance, 
and that a little while ago their colors were entirely 
red. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the 
flag borne at Bunker Hill, with the motto of Connecti- 
cut, "Qui transtulit, sustinet" —"Hq Who Trans- 
planted, will Sustain"— and the motto. "An Appeal 
to Heaven," which was adopted from the closing para- 
graph of the address of the provincial congress of 
Massachusetts to their brethren in Great Britain, was 
the flag represented in Trumbull's painting. 

The effort was made to embody the sentiment of 
Union, as was afterward seen in the old continental 
flag of thirteen stripes, and again the same flag is 
charged with a rattlesnake, signifying vigilance and 
union, with the words "Don't tread on me." 

In 1754, when Benjamin Franklin was editor of the 
Philadelphia Gazette, an article appeared urging union 
among the colonies as a means of insuring safety from 
the attacks of the French. The article was embellished 
with a woodcut of a snake divided into parts, with the 



364 Orations and Historical Addresses 

initial of some of the different colonies in each part. 
In 1774-6, when union was urged among the colonies 
as a means of securing their liberties, the emblem was 
adopted by many of the newspapers, but it was changed 
into an united snake, with the initials of the different 
colonies left out. Franklin, in a letter from Phila- 
delphia, dated December 27, 1775, says that he observed 
on one of the drums belonging to the marines then 
organizing the form of a rattlesnake, with the motto 
under it, "Don't tread on me." "As I know," con- 
tinued the philosopher, "that it is the custom to have 
some device on the arms of every country, I suppose 
this may have been intended for the arms of America." 

The flag presented to congress by Colonel Gadsden, 
and designated in words as the one "to be used by 
the commander-in-chief of the American navy," had 
a yellow field, with a lively representation of a rattle- 
snake in the middle, in the attitude of about to strike, 
and the words underneath, "Don't tread on me." Ad- 
miral Hopkins, the commander of the first American 
fleet that ever rode the ocean, bore this flag. This was 
the true naval flag, and was designated as the rattle- 
snake-union flag. It is said to have been the first en- 
sign ever shown by a regular American man-of-war, 
and was raised in December, 1775, on board the Alfred, 
one of the fleet of Admiral Hopkins, by that gallant 
officer, John Paul Jones. Admiral Hopkins, with his 
fleet of five sail, fitted out at Philadeliihia, and two 
more which were to join him at the Capes, in Virginia, 
being equipped in Maryland, proceeded to the British 
island of New Providence, West Indies, and took the 
governor prisoner. 

Another flag, having the rattlesnake symbol, was the 
Culpepper flag, adopted as their standard by the Cul- 



The American Flag 365 

pepper miiiute men, who assembled in obedience to the 
call of Patrick Henry. They were dressed in green 
himting shirts, with Henry's words, "Liberty or 
death," in large white letters on their bosoms. 

The banner of the Morgan rifles was notable among 
the flags of the Revolutionary period. This officer 
accompanied Arnold across the Wilderness to Quebec, 
and distinguished himself at Stillwater, where Bur- 
goyne was defeated, but achieved his greatest glory 
at the battle of the Cowpens. At the top, encircled in 
a wreath of laurel, was the date "1776;" beneath were 
the words "XI Virginia Regiment," while at the bot- 
tom were the further words "Morgan's Rifle Corps." 

The flag of Moultrie, who made such a gallant de- 
fense of the fort at Sullivan's Island in 1776 is best 
explained in his "Memoirs:" "As there was no na- 
tional flag at the time, I was desired by the council 
of safety to have one made, upon which, as the state 
troops were clothed in blue, and the fort was garrisoned 
by the first and second regiments, who wore a silver 
crescent on the front of their cape, I had a large blue 
flag made with a crescent in the dexter corner, to be 
uniform with the troops. This was the first American 
flag displayed in the south." 

The nuns of Bethlehem prepared a banner of crim- 
son silk, with designs beautifully wrought with the 
needle by their own hands, and sent it to Pulaski with 
their blessing. The poet Longfellow has immortalized 
the event in verse : 

"Take thy banner; and beneath 
The war-cloud's encircling wreath 
Guard it — till our homes are free. 
Giiard it — God will prosper thee ! 



366 Orations and Historical Addresses 

In the dark and trying hour, 

In the breaking forth of power, 

In the rush of steeds and men, 

His right hand will shield thee then." 

There was a distinct body of mounted men attached 
to the person of Washington, and commonly called 
the "Life Guard." It was organized in 1776, soon 
after the siege of Boston, and consisted of a major's 
command— one hundred and eighty men. The banner 
was of white silk, with the motto, "Conquer or die," 
on a ribbon over the top. Care was always taken to 
have all the states, from which the continental army 
was supplied with troops, represented in this corps. 

These flags antedated the flag of the United States, 
which was formally adopted by a resolution of con- 
gress, June 14, 1777. The resolution declared that 
the flag of the United States should be thirteen stripes, 
alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen 
stars, white in a blue field, representing a new con- 
stellation. This resolution, says Hamilton, was made 
public, September 3, 1777, and Colonel Tnimbull repre- 
sents the flag made in pursuance of it, and used at 
Burgoyne's surrender, October 17, 1777. This, how- 
ever, was only giving sanction, in a measure, to the flag 
that had existed since 1775, with the exception of the 
blue Union, containing thirteen stars. 

The first change occurred in 1794, when it was 
formally declared by congress that from and after the 
first day of May, Anno Domini one thousand seven 
hundred and ninety-five, the flag of the United States 
be fifteen stripes, alternate red and white: that the 
Union be fifteen stars, with a blue field. This was the 
niational standard during the War of 1812-14, and 



The American Flag 367 

waved over the fields of Luiidy's Lane and New Oi'- 
leans, and was seen amidst the smoke of Perry's guns 
on Lake Erie. 

There was another change on April 14, 1818, when 
it was declared that from and after the fourth day of 
July next, the flag of the United States be thirteen 
horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; that the 
Union be twenty stars, white and in a blue field; and 
that, upon the admission of a new state into the Union, 
a star be added to the Union of the flag, and that such 
addition shall take effect on the fourth day of July 
next succeeding such admission. 

The banner which floated in triumph from the na- 
tional palace of the haughty city of the Montezumas, 
and which told of the conquest of the Mexican empire, 
had thirty stars in the Union, while the flag which 
floats over a restored Union, as the emblem of its 
nationality, has forty-four stars in the Union. 

It, too, is the flag of political toleration and freedom 
from religious prosecution. It is most significant that 
the last vessel which transported the Jews from Spain 
into exile because of political prejudice and religious 
belief, met the Santa Maria, the first of the fleet of 
Columbus, on the way to discover a new continent. 
Both vessels dipped their sails in salute as they jDassed 
on the boundless ocean, which spoke only of freedom. 
One was going to America, the home of free religious 
thought; it was filled with sunshine and hope and 
promise. The other was going to despair, and was 
filled with hate and bitterness and prejudice. 

This flag, then, is worthy the best zeal and noblest 
affection; and what a glorious consciousness to have 
seen a million of men marshaled in its defense, and 
heard their shouts as they passed on in the ranks of 



368 Orations and Historical Addresses 

war; to have seen the flag of disunion go down in the 
dust, and the banner of glory again climbing to the 
high places, and to have heard the roar of victory 
mingling with the roar of the Mississippi to its min- 
gling with the roar of the ocean. But all who gathered 
to its defense did not return. 

The flag which young Van Arsdale pulled down at 
the foot of Broadway on that eventful day in Novem- 
ber, 1783, represented the monarchical idea and the 
divine right of kings. The flag which he raised 
was the republican idea, and carried up with it the sub- 
lime truth that the sacred Tightness which sanctifies 
the monarch is not so worthy of worship as 
the sacred Tightness which sanctifies the man. 
That idea fought the war for the Union, which 
was the crowning glory of the century. Each 
succeeding year will witness the mighty results of that 
gigantic struggle, while generation after generation 
will honor and revere the men who raised their hands, 
whether on land or on sea, for the Eepublic and the 
honor of the flag. 

The sun of our national prosperity will not go down 
while it is yet day. This nation was born for the whole 
era of liberty. Star after star will be added to the 
crowded galaxy of our flag, as we sing the same na- 
tional songs and acknowledge a common destiny from 
the green hills of the Eastern States to the golden 
shores of the distant Oregon and California. The se- 
curity of the Eepublic will be found in the love and 
respect and veneration of its citizens. 

The poet, Wordsworth, uttered the heroic spirit, 
when, looking from a valley near Dover toward the 



The American Flag 369 

coast of France, while Bonaparte was in the zenith of 
his power, he exclaimed: 

"Even so doth God protect us, if we be 
Virtuous and wise. Winds blow and waters roll, 
Strength to the brave, and power and Deity, 
Yet in themselves are nothing. One decree 
Spake law to them, and said, that by the soul. 
Only, the nations should be free." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Castelar declares that when one man dies for the 
many instead of living for himself, he secures for 
his name the most glorious of transformations — mar- 
tyrdom, and to his immortality the noblest of templea 
—the heart of the people. The glory of true martyr- 
dom has been given to the name of Abraham Lincoln, 
for to the impressiveness of an eventful life has been 
added the magic and melancholy charm of an eventful 
death. It was necessary that America should read 
the history of this great life, not only with interest, 
but with emotion. Abraham Lincoln saw to it that 
we should read it with interest— Wilkes Booth saw to 
it that we should read it with tears. The statesman 
that has lived long enough to be compared with Wash- 
ington should care for little beyond, and whether one 
die by the hand of violence in middle life, or by the 
decline of old age, is a question of less importance than 
whether the life, while it lasted, was useful to man- 
kind or to his country. 

It has been truly said that "Lincoln, indeed, fell 
in the prime of life; but that time for falling has been 
honored in the centuries. When the Roman statesman 
Pompey— called the Great— fell by the dagger of the 
assassin, he had journeyed two years beyond the period 
at which the dead president paused in his career. 
When Caesar fell bleeding, he was just as far from 
his mother's arms as was Lincoln on that fatal Friday 
night. When Henry IV, of France, the best king 

Delivered in Dayton, Ohio, February 15, 1894. 
[370] 



Abraham Lincoln 371 

France ever had, was stabbed to the heart in his car- 
riage, he was only two years older than the martyred 
president. When William, Prince of Orange, received 
the assassin's balls in his bosom and cried out, 'Oh, 
God, pity me and my country,' nature had not been 
80 kind to him by three years as to that man who, on 
the fourteenth of April, 1865, dropped his head si- 
lently upon his bosom in death." 

Abraham Lincoln was identified with the greatest 
crisis of the age. He represented neither aggressive 
war, nor the overthrow of a dynasty, but the sublime 
idea that the unity of the Republic must be maintained. 
This idea, which involved home and family and society, 
was successful on the field of battle, and his name will 
go ringing through the generations. The Rebellion 
of 1861, whether viewed in its colossal proportions, or 
the imaginary evils that produced it, or the just and 
complete form of government sought to be overthrown, 
forms one of the most extraordinary chapters in hu- 
man history. Perhaps the pen of the historian cannot 
even now write dispassionately of this great straggle, 
but we do know that the North and the South were at 
length arrayed against each other in two great political 
parties on the great question of human servitude. 
When ^ve had achieved our independence of Great 
Britain, and our fathers assembled to lay the fabric 
of the new government, they were at once confronted 
with the question of slavery, and right in the face of 
the declaration of independence, by which the war of 
the Revolution was justified, human slavery, from the 
very force of circumstances, was accepted and recog- 
nized as an element in this Republic. It was hoped, 
however, that it would gradually disappear, under the 
benign infliaence of free institutions and the overwhelm- 



372 Orations and Historical Addresses 

ing advantages of fi'ee labor. Nor, does it require 
the spirit of prophecy to-day to predict that whenever 
east or west, or north or south, shall now, or hereafter, 
stand arrayed against each other in hostile political 
parties, the peace of the Republic will be threatened. 
It was in view of this possible calamity that Wash- 
ington in his farewell address admonished his country- 
men, that in contemplating the causes that may disturb 
the Union, it was a matter of serious concern that any 
ground should be furnished for characterizing parties 
by geographical discriminations, northern and south- 
ern, Atlantic and western, whence designing men 
might endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real 
difference of local interests and views. During these 
years of increasing excitement and danger to the Re- 
public, though the general government stood uncom- 
mitted to either section of the country, the states, north 
and south, in their sovereign capacity, legislated on 
sectional lines, and intensified the hatred, the end of 
which every patriotic citizen contemplated with horror. 

It may be interesting to gather some idea of the 
moral and physical surroundings of Lincoln's earlier 
days. It is only necessary for our people to carry 
their memories back fifty years, in order to have a 
lively conception of that peculiar body of men, which 
for many years was pushed out to the front of civiliza- 
tion in the West. 

The great victory of Wolfe over Montcalm was 
achieved on September 4, 1759. It was less than fifty 
years after that historic day in September that Abra- 
ham Lincoln was born in Kentucky. The domestic 
surroundings amid which the babe came into the world 
were not inviting. Many of the Lincoln biographers 
have been much concerned to color this truth, which 



Abraham Lincoln 373 

he himself, with his honest nature, was never willing 
to misrepresent, however much he resisted efforts to 
give it a general publicity. He met curiosity with ret- 
icence, but with no effort to mislead. It has been 
said that the family was imbued with the peculiar, 
intense, but unenlightened form of Christianity, 
mingled with the curious superstition prevalent in the 
back woods, and begotten by the influence of the vast 
wilderness upon illiterate men of a rude native force. 
It interests scholars to trace the evolutions of religious 
faiths, but it might not be less suggestive sometimes 
to study the retrogression of religion into superstition. 
His father was as restless in matters of creed as of 
residence, and made various changes in both during 
life. 

In the second year after his marriage, Thomas Lin- 
coln, the father, made his first removal. Four years 
later, he made another, while two or three years later, 
in the autumn of 1816, he abandoned Kentucky and 
went to Indiana. On October 5, 1818, his mother, 
Nancy Lincoln, passed away, and was interred in a 
rough coffin, fashioned by her husband, "out of green 
lumber cut with a whipsaw. " She was laid away in 
the forest clearing, and a few months afterward an 
itinei'ant preacher performed some religious rites over 
the humble grave of the mother of one of the great 
figures in history. 

His biographers, Herndon and Lamon and Holland, 
say that the sum of all the schooling which he had in 
his whole life was hardly one year, but he laid hands 
upon all the books he could find, and read and re-read 
them until they were absorbed. Nicolas and Hay give 
the list: The Bible, Aesop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, 
Pilgrim's Progress, Weems' Washington, and a His- 



374 Orations and Historical Addresses 

tory of the United States. He was doubtless much 
older when he devoured the Revised Statutes of In- 
diana in the office of the constable. Dr. Holland adds 
Lives of Henry Clay and of Franklin (probably the 
famous autobiography), and Ramsay's Washington, 
while Arnold names Shakespeare and Burns. It was 
not a large collection of books, but it was a nourishing 
collection. He used to write and do sums in arith- 
metic on the wooden shovel by the fireside, and then 
shave off the surface in order to renew the labor. 

In February, 1825, his father, with the scanty house- 
hold wares packed in an ox-team, began a march 
which lasted fourteen days, and entailed no small 
measure of hardship. He finally stopped at a bluff 
on the north bank of the Sangamon, a stream which 
empties into the Ohio. Abraham assisted in clearing 
ten or fifteen acres of land, split the rails and fenced 
it, planted it with corn and made it over to his father 
as a sort of bequest at the close of his term of legal 
infancy. 

He then went south with a cargo of hogs, pork and 
corn to New Orleans, and it is related that this visit 
first gave him a glimpse of slavery, and that the 
spectacle of negroes in chains and of a slave auction 
implanted in his mind an unconquerable hatred toward 
the institution. It is true that he refers to a trip made 
in 1841, when there were on board ten or a dozen slaves 
shackled together with irons. In writing of this in- 
cident some fourteen years later, to his friend, Joshua 
Speed, he says, ' ' That sight was a continual torment to 
me, and I see something like it every time I touch the 
Ohio or any other slave border. It is not fair for you 
to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, 



Abraham Lincoln 375 

and continually exercises, the power of making me 
miserable." John Hanks asserts that Lincoln ex- 
claimed to him at that time, "If I ever get a chance to 
hit that thing, I'll hit it hard." 

In the spring of 1832, a noted chief of the Sacs led 
a campaign of such importance that it lives in history 
as the "Black Hawk War." The red man was re- 
tiring sullenly before the advance of the white civiliza- 
tion, but still the Indians gathered in such numbers 
that Governor Reynolds issued a call for volunteers 
to aid the national force. Lincoln at once enlisted, and 
three-fourths of the company to which he belonged 
ranged themselves with him and elected him captain. 
No other success in life, he often remarked, had given 
him so much pleasure as this triumph. This company 
was attached to the Fourth Illinois Regiment, com- 
manded by Colonel Samuel Thompson, in the brigade 
of General Samuel Whiteside. They started for the 
scene of action on the twenty-seventh of April, and 
on the twenty-seventh of May following, they were 
mustered out of service. Lincoln and some other offi- 
cers re-enlisted as privates in the "Independent Spy 
Battalion of Mounted Volunteers." It is a singular 
fact that his certificate of discharge was signed by 
Robert Anderson, who was in command of Fort Sum- 
ter at the outbreak of the Rebellion. 

There is neither the time nor is this the occasion 
to follow Mr. Lincoln in his career in the legislature 
of Illinois and in the congress of the United States. 
Those who were bom of the people, among whom Lin- 
coln belonged, were peculiar in having no reminis- 
cences, whereby to modify the influences of the im- 
mediate present. An important trait of these western 
communities was the closeness of personal intercourse 



376 Orations and Historical Addresses 

in them, and the utter lack of any kind of barriers 
establishing strata of society. 

Some of the most picturesque and amusing pages 
of Ford's History of Hlinois describe the condition of 
the bench and the bar at these times. The judge some- 
times sat on the bed in the log cabin, and there, really 
from the woolsack, adminstered "law" mixed with 
equity as best he knew it. Usually these magistrates 
were prudent in guiding the course of practical jus- 
tice, and rarely summed up the facts lest they should 
make dangerous enemies, especially in criminal cases; 
they often refused to state the law, and generally for 
a very good reason. They liked best to turn the whole 
matter over to the jurors, who doubtless "under- 
stood the case and would do justice between the par- 
ties." The books of the science were scarce, and law- 
yers who studied them were probably scarcer. But 
probably substantial fairness in the administration of 
the law did not suffer by reason of lack of the col- 
lege diploma. 

His chief trait all his life and amidst all these sur- 
roundings was honesty of all kinds and in all things : 
not only commonplace, material honesty in dealings, 
but honesty in language, in purpose, in thought : honesty 
of mind, so that he could never practice the most 
tempting of all deceits— a deceit against himself. This 
pervading honesty was the trait of his identity, which 
stayed with him from the beginning to the end, when 
other traits seemed to be changing, appearing or dis- 
appearing, and bewildering the observer of his career. 
All the while the universal honesty was there. But 
the chief educational influence on Abraham Lincoln was 
to be formed in the Anglo-American passion for an 
argument and a speech. Law and politics, hand in 



AbraJiam Lincoln 377 

hand, moved among the people, who had an inborn and 
an inherited taste for each. Abraham Lincoln soon 
turned to them, because they appeared to him as the 
highest callings which could tempt intellect and ambi- 
tion. 

The pre-eminently striking feature, however, in 
Lincoln's nature, was the extraordinary degree to 
which he always appeared to be in close and s\Tnpa- 
thetic touch with the people. He first appeared to the 
people of a frontier settlement; it then widened to in- 
clude the state of Illinois ; it then reached to the people 
of the entire north; and now there are those who be- 
lieve that he would have welded, had he lived, the en- 
tire sentiment of once alienated eounti'ymen into the 
solidified idea of a united Republic. 

It is said of Abraham Lincoln that he had a tendency 
to gloom, and that the horizon of his life was always 
clouded with the shadow of a darkness through which 
the sun never shone. It is seen to-day in his face, and 
it was always felt in his manner, and all will testify 
that his pictures still present it. It is well known that 
the coarse and rough side of pioneer life had its re- 
action in a reserved habit, nearly akin to sadness, at 
least in those frequenting the wilderness; it was the 
expression of the influence of the vast and desolate 
nature amid which they passed their lives. It is true 
that Lincoln was never a backwoodsman in that sense 
of the term, yet these influences were about him, and 
his disposition was sensitive and sympathetic for that 
purpose. The sense of fate, which the grandeur of 
the Greek tragedies so powerfully expresses, comes 
to us all to-night, when we contemplate the strange 
cloud which never left this man, and makes his fate 
the more striking and mysterious. No one can look 



378 Orations and Historical Addresses 

into that sad face to-day without being impressed with 
the idea that the clouds have more gloom than sun- 
shine. 

Abraham Lincoln believed it to be the armed pur- 
pose of secession to establish on an enduring founda- 
tion a permanent slave empire, and he declared with 
supreme emphasis that slavery was not safe within 
the Union. Underneath the magnificent fabric of the 
United States of America lay, logically, the question 
of slavery. It was the superlative question whether 
a nation can, by force, preserve its own integrity. It 
was simply whether six millions of people had a right 
to base a revolution upon the degradation of man. 
He gave war more than a character for patriotism; 
he gave it a character for humanity. He made it a 
war, not for the United States alone, but a war for 
mankind, a war for the people, a war for the ages yet 
to come. He looked upward with an unfailing con- 
fidence that civil war must become intelligible to the 
end that its finished proportions and its relationship 
meant the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of 
mankind. He had perfect confidence in the ultimate 
triumph of truth; he was always willing to tie to it, 
according as he could see it, and then he was willing 
to abide by it. Blaine, in his Tiventy Years in Con- 
gress said: He loved the tnith for the truth's sake. 
He would not argue from a false premise, or be de- 
ceived himself, or deceive others, by a false conclu- 
sion. * * * He did not seek to say merely the thing 
which was best for that day's debate, but the thing 
which would stand the test of time, and square him- 
self with eternal justice. • * * jjjg ]ogie was se- 
vere and faultless. He did not resort to fallacy. 
There was never a more truthful utterance made by 



Abraham Lincoln 379 

living statesman than when Abraham Lincoln declared 
in his debate with Douglass that the proposition that 
elavery could not enter a new country without police 
regulations was historically false; and that the facts 
of the Dred Scott case itself showed that there was 
'vigor enough in slavery to plant itself in a new coun- 
try even against unfriendly legislation. It is the eter- 
nal struggle between the two principles of right and 
wrong. These two principles have stood face to face 
from the beginning of time, and will continue to strug- 
gle. The time is soon coming when the sun shall 
shine, the rain fall, on no man who shall go forth 
to unrequited toil. How this will come, and when 
this will come, no man can tell — but that time will 
surely come.' " 

In his inaugural address, Mr. Lincoln showed hia 
great appreciation of the situation. He dwelt with 
unerring judgment upon the absorbing question of 
the Union of the states. It was the only real great 
sei'V'ice that could be rendered his country at that time. 
He had for many years anchored, with unerring ac- 
curacy, to anti-slavery; now, in the face of the entire 
nation, he anchored to the Union with supreme af- 
fection. 

No one can read the first inaugural address of Pres- 
ident Lincoln without being profoundly impressed with 
his pacific policy. He endeavored to show that the 
rebellion was without adequate cause, and left no way 
untried to secure an honorable peace. He had a warm 
and devoted affection for the Federal Union. Never 
in the history of the government, have the affairs of 
the high office of president of the United States been 
administered with such direct reference to the will of 
God, and the everlasting principles of justice and 



380 Orations and Historical Addresses 

righteousness. Standing above the loose morality of 
party politics, standing above the maxims and con- 
ventionalisms of statesmanship, trusting the people, 
leaning upon the people, and inspired by the people, 
who in their homes and in their sanctuaries gave him 
their confidence, the administration of Abraham 
Lincoln stands out in history as the most magnificent 
exhibition of a Christian democracy the world has yet 
seen. 

In his appeal to the people, he says, "Why should 
there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice 
of the people! Is there any better or equal hope in 
the world! In onr present differences is either party 
without faitli of being in the right! If the Almighty 
Kuler of nations, with His eternal truth and justice 
be on your side of the north, or on yours of the south, 
that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the 
judgment of the great tribunal, the American people. 
By the frame of the government under which we live, 
this same joeople have wisely given their public serv- 
ants but little power for mischief, and have with equal 
wisdom provided for the return of that little to their 
own hands at very short intervals. While the people 
retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, 
by any extreme wickedness or folly can very seriously 
injure the government in the space of four years. 

"My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon the whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost 
by taking time. 

"If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot 
haste, to a step which you would never take deliber- 
ately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; 
but no good object can be frustrated by it. 

"Such of you as are dissatisfied still have the old 



Abraham Lincoln 381 

constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, 
the law of your own framing under it: while the new 
administration will have no immediate power if it 
would to change either. 

"If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied 
hold the right side in the dispute, there is still no 
single reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, pa- 
triotism, Christianity, and a fair reliance on Him who 
has never forsaken this favored land, are still com- 
petent to adjust in the best way, all our present dif- 
ficulties. 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The government will not assail you. 

"You can have no conflict without being yourselves 
the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven 
to destroy the government, while I shall have the most 
solemn one to 'preserve, protect and defend it.' 

"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it must not break the bonds of af- 
fection. 

' ' The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every 
battle field and patriot grave to every living heart 
and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell 
the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as they 
surely will be by the better angels of our nature." 

These words of tenderness and affection went un- 
heeded. The war came. 

When Charles James Fox heard of the destruction 
of the Bastile, he declared in his enthusiasm that it 
was the grandest and noblest achievement of the age. 
History might adopt the language of the great English 
orator over the destniction of American slavery. 



382 Orations and Historical Addresses 

The Proclamation of Emancipation involved the 
liberty of four millions of people and of millions un- 
born : it changed the policy of the government and the 
course and character of the war; it revolutionized 
the social institutions of more than one-third of the 
nation, and brought all the governments of Christen- 
dom into new relations to the rebellion. It is not 
strange that he should have invoked on this act the 
considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious 
favor of Almighty God. 

Motley, in his "Rise of the Dutch Republic," tells 
us that William the Silent was buried amidst universal 
tears and lamentations, because he had conquered lib- 
erty for an entire people. Lincoln, too, will live in 
the gratitude of the oppressed whose wrongs he made 
his own. 

"Weep not for him! The Thraeinn wisely gave 
Years to the birth-couch, triumph to the grave, 
Weep not for him! Go mark his high career; 
He knew no shame, no folly, and no fear. 
Nurtured to peril, lo ! the peril came 
To lead him on from field to field, to fame. 
Weep not for him whose lastroiis light has known 
No field of fame he has not made his own." 

The second inaugui'al address of President Lincoln 
showed no touch of resentment, but a patriotism that 
comprehended the whole country and a profound con- 
fidence in an over-ruling Providence. The war was 
still in progress, but there was no longer any doubt 
in the hearts of the people that the government would 
be triumphant. He had accomplished the greatest 
work for his country and for mankind that had ever 
been committed to a mortal to perform. A great na- 



Abraham Lincoln 383 

tion had been saved from wreck by his hands : a race 
had been disenthralled by his word and his policy, and 
a popular government had been established in the faith 
and affections of the people, and in the respect of the 
governments of the world. 

"The progress of our arms," said the president, 
"upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known 
to the public as to myself: and it is, I trust, reason- 
ably satisfactory and encouraging to all, with high 
hoi)e for the future, no prediction in regard to it is 
ventured. ' ' 

"On the occasion corresponding to this, four years 
ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an im- 
pending Ci\Tl War. All dreaded it; all sought to 
avoid it. While the inaugural address was being de- 
livered from this jDlace, devoted altogether to saving 
the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the 
city seeking to destroy it without war— seeking to dis- 
solve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. 
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would 
make war rather than let the nation survive, and the 
other would accept war rather than let it perish; and 
the war came. 

"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same 
God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It 
may seem strange that any men should dare to ask 
a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from 
the sweat of other men's faces: but let us judge not, 
that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not 
be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. 
The Almighty has His own purposes. 



384 Orations and Historical Addresses 

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that the 
mighty scourge of war may soon pass away. 

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, 
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the 
right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind 
up the nation 's wounds, to care for him who shall have 
borne the battle and for his widow and orphans, to 
do all which may achieve a lasting peace among our- 
selves and with all nations." 

Every cloud had disappeared from the heavens, 
while a very sun of Austerlitz irradiated earth and 
sky while these immortal words were uttered. This 
happy augury was also accompanied by the almost 
simultaneous appearance of a bright star in the 
Heavens, which attracted universal attention. It was 
the star of the Eepublic. 

With the soldiers who were fighting the battles of 
the country, he had the deepest sympathy, and when- 
ever he was congratulated on a success in the field, 
he always alluded gratefully to the men who had won 
it. Indeed, there has never been a more eloquent 
tribute to the cause and to the men who fought for 
that cause than the oration of President Lincoln at 
Gettysburg. It has not been equaled since the oration 
of Pericles on those who fell in the Pelopennesian 
War. 

' * Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in 
liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great 
civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation 
BO conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We 
are met in a great battlefield of that war. We have 
come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final rest- 



Abraham Lincoln 385 

ing place for those who here gave their lives that the 
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper 
that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can- 
not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow 
this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who 
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power 
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long 
remember, what we say here; but it can never forget 
what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather 
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they 
who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It 
is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task 
remaining before us, that from these honored dead we 
take increased devotion to that cause for which they 
gave the last full measure of devotion: that we here 
highly resolve that these dead heroes shall not have 
lived in vain : that this nation, under God, shall have 
a new birth of freedom, and that the government of 
the people, by the people and for the people shall not 
perish from the earth." 

Men of the United States of America, no more sacred 
trust has ever been committed to humanity than to 
preserve this fabric of constitutional government, 
saved by such heroic sacrifices, for the generations of 
the future. 

It was my fortune to walk the streets of Eichmond 
by the side of Abraham Lincoln on the Monday fol- 
lowing the evacuation. He came up from the City 
Point in a man-of-war, and landed at the Rochetts 
below the city, and rode up the remaining mile in a 
boat. He passed through the streets of the fallen 
capital on foot, and with no guard except the sailors 
who had rowed him up the James River. As he passed 
the capitol building of the once proud Confederacy, his 

25 



386 Orations and Historical Addresses 

eye lighted uj^ as he beheld the flag of the United 
States floating in triumph. What a glorious conscious- 
ness to have seen a million of men marshaled in its 
defence and heard their shouts as they passed onward 
in the ranks of war : to have seen the flag of dis-union 
go down in the dust, and the banner of glory climbing 
again to the high places : to have seen vast armies 
picked up on the banks of the Potomac and dropped 
on the banks of the Cumberland and the Tennessee 
and to have at last heard the roar of victory mingling 
with the roar of the Mississippi, even to its mingling 
with the roar of the ocean. His motives were vindi- 
cated, his policy had been sanctioned and his power 
had been proved. 

The hand of the assassin had struck him when I next 
saw that kindly face. We quote language descriptive 
of the scene : ' ' The great East Room of the Executive 
Mansion was shrouded in black. Every window was 
darkened with many folds of crape : every pilaster was 
covered : the great mirrors were bordered with black : 
the chandeliers hung in festoons of mourning : the dim, 
religious light was still further broken by the hushed 
crowds of solemn spectators gathered from all the high 
places of the land. In the center stood the lofty cata- 
falque beneath whose sombre arches rested all that 
remained of the man who decreed emancipation to 
the slaves. It was plain enough that he who lay thus 
calmly here was sleeping his last sleep. Around the 
cofBn lay masses of flowers : at the head stood a cross 
of flowers: at the foot was an anchor: on the breast 
lay a chaplet of leaves. To these tender e\ddences of 
affection was added whatever gorgeous trappings of 
solemn woe the wealth of a sorrowing nation could be- 
stow. Generals and admirals gathered on the portico 



Abraham Lincoln 387 

of the east front of the Capitol. The president, the 
diplomatic corps, the chief justice and the cahinet had 
entered the vast rotunda — the fane of the Republic— 
and slow paced bearers moved up the stately steps, 
and by the statues and under the columns, till they 
placed the coffin beneath the Statue of Freedom, and 
within the circle of historic paintings that mark the 
origin and j^rogress of the nation." 

A great President moved from the Capitol to the 
grave, exchanging life for death, but above the Capitol 
and the grave is God, beautiful in his power and in 
his everlasting peace. Moses and Aaron sunk in death 
in mountain solitudes, their eye having caught only 
fading visions of the promised land : but with their 
leaders cold in death the nation went on over Jordan 
and encamped on that lovely land. It was not God 
that had died in Pisgah,— it was Moses and Aaron. 
"When an earthly voice becomes silent, there yet re- 
mains the everlasting voice, sometimes awful in the 
thunders of its judgments, but indescribably sweet in 
its whisperings of love. 

There is left to us a country in which the prairies 
of the West are bound to the vales of the Potomac by 
another Mt. Vernon in the waving grass of Illinois. 
He that called so many young men to the battlefield 
was no doubt willing that his own body should lie 
down with theirs, and the soldier's grave is made 
sweeter that by his side sleeps one so kind, so honest, 
so illustrious. 



GENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE AND THE 
BATTLE OP FALLEN TIMBERS 

In April, 1792, Anthony Wayne was appointed by 
President Washington, commander-in-chief of the army 
of the United States. The position to which he was 
called, under the circumstances, required military and 
diplomatic skill of the highest order. It seemed that 
the government was about to become involved in an 
interminable war with the Indians of the North West, 
while hostilities with Great Britain appeared inevi- 
table, because of the refusal to comply with certain 
articles of the Treaty of 1783, and especially that which 
provided for the evacuation of the forts in the Terri- 
tory northwest of the Ohio River. 

The first step to be taken was the re-organization 
of the army, since the troops under St. Clair had been 
almost annihilated and completely demoralized. The 
army was to be known as the "Legion of the United 
States," and was to consist of one major-general, four 
brigadier-generals and their respective statTs, the 
"necessary number of commissioned officers," and five 
thousand, one hundred and twenty non-commissioned 
officers and privates. The secretary of war at parting 
with General Wayne, in May, 1792, "expressly en- 
joined upon him that another defeat would be inex- 
pressibly ruinous to the reputation of the govern- 

Delivered on the Battlefield, August 20. 1894, on the 
Centennial Anniversary of the Battle of Fallen Timbers 
under the Auspices of the ]\Iauniee Valley Monumental Asso- 
ciation. 

[388] 



General Anthony Wayne 389 

ment;" while the only request made by the commander- 
in-chief was that the campaign should not begin until 
the legion was filled up and projierly disciplined. 

General Wayne went to Pittsburg in June, 1792, for 
the purj^ose of recruiting and organizing his army. 
During the summer and winter efforts were made to 
ascertain whether the Indians were willing to negotiate, 
until at last it was determined that the only way to 
protect the frontiers, and make possible the safety 
and security of the settler, was to advance into the 
Indian country and bring them into submission by the 
strong arm of military power. Toward the close of 
the summer he moved his camp to a position on the 
Ohio River about twenty-seven miles below Pittsburg, 
and there remained during the winter in striving to 
conciliate the Indians, but in the meantime giving strict 
attention to the recruiting and disciplining of his army. 
At the close of March the force consisted of about two 
thousand, five hundred men; and he writes that "The 
progress that the troops have made both in manoeuver- 
ing and as marksmen astonished the savages on St. 
Patrick's Day: and I am happy to inform you that the 
sons of that saint were perfectly sober and orderly, 
being out of the reach of whisky, which baneful poison 
is prohibited from entering this camp except as the 
component part of a ration, or a little for fatigue duty 
or on some extraordinary occasion." In May, 1793, 
he moved his camp to Fort Washington, the present 
site of Cincinnati. In the preceding January the gen- 
eral had been told by the secretary of war that the 
"sentiments of the citizens of the United States are 
adverse in the extreme to an Indian war; and even a 
commission had been named to treat with the Indians 
in the hope of securing peace. The secretary of war 



390 Orations and Historical Addresses 

again assured him that it was still more necessary than 
heretofore that no offensive operations be taken against 
the Indians. Still General Wayne spared no effort in 
further securing the efficiency of his army, and he even 
sent to Kentucky for mounted volunteers. 

The dreadful loss of life in St. Clair's defeat of 
November 4, 1791, greater even than that in the de- 
feat of Braddock, did not by any means represent the 
disastrous results of that campaign. It opened an un- 
protected frontier of one thousand miles from the 
Allegheny Mountains to the Mississippi River to the 
depredations of the victorious savages. The settlers 
along the borders were abandoning their homes, or 
awaiting in helpless despair the bui-nings and massa- 
cres and cruelties of an Indian war. This feeling of 
insecurity extended even beyond the borders of Penn- 
sylvania and Virginia and the people petitioned their 
governors for protection. The settlers withdrew into 
their strong places and kept watch as militia for the 
protection of their homes. Such agricultural pursuits 
as were carried on required men with guns at hand as 
well as axes and hoes. Winthrop Sergeant, command- 
ing the militia in the absence of Governor St. Clair, 
felt called upon to issue an order or proclamation as 
to assembling for public worship without arms. It 
is dated Cincinnati, September 18, 1792, and declares 
that the practice of assembling for public worship 
without arms may be attended with most serious and 
melancholy consequences. It presents the opportunity 
to an enemy of the smallest degree of enterprise to 
effect such fatal impression upon an infant settlement 
as posterity might long in vain lament. 

The laws of the Territory then provided that every 



General Anthony Wayne 391 

man enrolled in the militia should, upon such occa- 
sions, arm and equip himself as though he were march- 
ing to engage the enemy, or in default should be fined 
in the sum of one hundred cents, to be levied upon com- 
plaint made to any justice of the peace. General Wil- 
kinson, on the very day after the engagement at Fort 
St. Clair, wrote to Governor St. Clair from Fort Wash- 
ington, in which he alluded to the impending storm. 
It may well be said that when General Wayne reached 
the Northwestern Territory he was confronted with 
a condition and not a theory. 

In the same year, October, 1792, a great council of 
all the tribes of the North West was held at Au Glaize 
—now Fort Defiance. It was the largest Indian Coun- 
cil of the time. The chiefs of all the tribes of the 
North Western Territory were there, as well as the 
representatives of the Seven Nations of Canada. Corn- 
planter was present— the same famous chief who, at 
the table of General Wayne, at Legionville, in 1793, 
said : ' ' My mind is upon that river ; ' ' pointing to the 
Ohio, "may that water ever continue to run, and re- 
main the lasting boundary between the Americans and 
Indians on the oi^posite side." The question of peace 
or war was long and earnestly discussed. It was 
finally agreed that they would lay the bloody tomahawk 
aside until they heard from the president of the United 
States, when the message would be sent to all the dif- 
ferent nations. It was further agreed that they would 
attend the council at the Rapids of the Miami — Maumee 
—next spring to hear all that would take place. 

This armistice or cessation of hostilities which the 
Indians then promised to respect until spring, as will 
be observed, was not faithfully kept. It must be said 
to the credit of our government that even the viola- 



392 Orations and Historical Addresses 

tion of the armistice, with other hostilities, did not 
prevent the United States from taking measures to 
meet the hostile tribes "at the Eapids of the Miami, 
or Maumee," when the leaves were fully out; and for 
this purpose Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph and 
Timothy Pickering were appointed as commissioners 
to attend the proposed council, which it was finally 
concluded should be held at Sandusky. 

The declaration of Cornplanter that the Ohio river 
should be the boundary rendered useless any further 
attempts at pacification by treaty. Indeed the hostile 
manner in which they were received, as well as con- 
tinued depredations, made war inevitable. Colonel 
Harden and Major Trueman, who were the bearers 
of a message of this character, were barbarously mur- 
dered by the Indians to whom they were sent, while 
in the other the terms of the government were decided- 
ly rejected, after negotiations had been protracted 
until the enemy felt himself better prepared for the 
conflict which must follow. The correspondence of Gen- 
eral Wajme in the conduct of the campaign from the 
very beginning evinces great strength and soundness 
of judgment, as well as a knowledge of the people of 
the frontiers whom he was to defend and of the foes 
whom he was commissioned to subdue. 

In September, 1793, the secretary of war writes to 
General WajTie : ' ' Every offer has been made to ob- 
tain peace by milder terms than the sword : the efforts 
have failed under circumstances which leave nothing 
for us to expect but war. Let it therefore be again, 
and for the last time, impressed deeply upon your 
mind, that as little as possible is to be hazarded, that 
your force is fully adequate to the object you pui-pose 
to effect, and that a defeat at the present time, and 



General Anthony Wayne 393 

under the present circumstances would be pernicious 
in the highest degree to the interests of the whole 
country." 

General Wayne, in reply to the secretary of war, 
wrote on the fifteenth of October, 1793, from his camp, 
' * Hobson 's Choice, ' ' near Cincinnati : "I will advance 
to-morrow with the force I have in order to take up a 
position in front of Fort Washington, so as to keep 
the enemy in check by exciting a jealousy and appre- 
hension for the safety of their women and children, 
until some favorable circumstance or opportunity may 
present to strike with effect. I pray you not to permit 
present appearances to cause too much ansiety either 
in the mind of the president or yourself on account of 
this army. Knowing the critical situation of our in- 
fant nation, and feeling for the honor and reputation 
of the government (which I will support with my latest 
breath), you may rest assured that I will not commit 
the legion unnecessarily. Unless more powerfully 
supported than I have reason to expect, I will content 
myself with taking a strong position in advance of 
Fort Jefferson, and by exerting every power to en- 
deavor to protect the frontier and secure the posts and 
the army during the winter ; or until I am favored with 
your further orders." 

The army of General Wayne, some twenty-five hun- 
dred strong, began its forward movement in the Wil- 
derness on the seventh day of October, 1793. The 
army marched to Fort Hamilton and finally encamped 
at a post six miles in advance of Fort Jefferson and 
eighty miles distant from Cincinnati, which was named 
Greenville in honor of General Nathaniel Greene, with 
whom he served in the war of the Revolution. General 
St. Clair crossed the Big Miami at Fort Hamilton, 



394 Orations and Historical Addresses 

while General Wayne crossed the river some distance 
above the Four Mile Creek. Lieutenant Lowry, in 
command of a detachment to secure a convoy of sup- 
plies, was attacked October 17, 1793, by Little Turtle, 
at Ludlow Spring, about seven miles from Fort. St. 
Clair. Lieutenant Lowry was killed, with some thir- 
teen non-commissioned officers and privates, while not 
less than seventy horses were taken by the Indians. 

The report of this engagement by General Wayne 
is most signiticant. It will be remembered that the 
disaster to the army on November 4, 1791, had filled 
the whole country with sorrow, and much criticism was 
provoked by the result of the campaign. The public 
mind was sensitive and the commanding general real- 
ized that hostile criticism might magnify the attack 
and its results. The secretary of war, too, was not 
without some apprehension as to the result of the 
campaign. General Wayne accordingly hastened to 
report the action to General Knox, secretary of war, 
in a letter dated "Camp, southwest branch of the 
Miami, six miles advanced of Fort Jefferson, October 
23, 1793." He was then at Fort Greenville and the 
southwest branch of the Miami is Greenville Creek. 
The report says: "The greatest difficulty which at 
present presents, is that of furnishing a sufficient es- 
cort to secure our convoy of provisions and other sup- 
plies from insult and disaster, and at the same time 
retain a sufficient force in camp to sustain and repel 
the attacks of the enemy, who appear desperate and 
determined. We have recently experienced a little 
check to our convoys which may probably be exag- 
gerated into something serious by the tongue of fame, 
before this reaches you. The following, however, is 
the fact, viz: Lieutenant Lowry, of the second Sub- 



General Anthony Wayne 395 

Legion, and Ensign Boyd, of tlie first, with a command 
consisting of ninety commissioned officers and privates, 
having in charge twenty wagons belonging to the quar- 
ter master general's department, loaded with grain, 
and one of the contractor's wagons loaded with stores, 
were attacked early in the morning of the seventeenth 
instant, about seven miles advanced of Fort St. Clair, 
by a party of Indians. These gallant young gentle- 
men, who promised at a future day to be ornaments 
to their profession, together with thirteen non-com- 
missioned officers and privates bravely fell, after an 
obstinate resistance against superior numbers, being 
abandoned by the greater part of the escort upon the 
first discharge. The savages killed or carried off about 
seventy horses leaving the wagons and stores standing 
in the road, which have all been brought into the camp 
without any other loss or damage except some trifling 
articles." 

Those who fell in that engagement were buried in 
Fort St. Clair, where, after resting for more than forty 
years, they were taken up and re-interred with the 
honors of war on the fourth day of July, 1846. The 
remains of this gallant officer and his men were after- 
wards removed to the mound in the cemetery at Eaton, 
where, as the inscription tells, a monument "marks 
their resting place, and will be a monument of their 
glory for ages to come." 

General Wayne passed the winter of 1793-4 at Fort 
Greenville, and without any communication with the 
government at Philadelphia for months. He was left 
to his own resources. Convoys of provisions for the 
camp were frequently interce]3ted, as under Major 
Lowry, and their escort murdered by the savages. In 
December, 1793, General Wayne sent forward a de- 



396 Orations and Historical Addresses 

tachment to the spot of St. Clair's defeat. The com- 
mand arrived on the ground on Christmas day and 
pitched their tents on the battlefield. After the melan- 
choly duty of burying the bones remaining above the 
ground, a fortification was built and named Fort Re- 
covery, in commemoration of the recovery of the 
ground from the Indians who had held possession since 
1791. One company of artillery and one of riflemen 
were left for the defense of the fort while the rest of 
the command returned to Fort Greenville. In Jan- 
uary, 1792, General James Wilkinson, who then com- 
manded at Fort AVashington, made a call for volunteers 
to accompany an expedition to the scene of St. Clair's 
defeat for the purpose of burying the dead. Ensign 
William Henry Harrison was attached to one of the 
companies of the regular troops. It is said that the 
body of General Richard Butler, the friend and com- 
rade of General Wayne in the war of the Revolution, 
was recognized where the carnage had been the thick- 
est, and among a group of the slain. The bodies were 
gathered together, and in the solitude of the forest, 
and amidst the gloom of winter, were given a last rest- 
ing place. 

While the army of General Wayne was encamped 
at Fort Greenville there was a severe and bloody en- 
gagement under the very walls of Fort Recovery. 
This occurred on the thirtieth of June, 179-}-, between 
a detachment of American troops, consisting of ninety 
riflemen and fifty dragoons commanded by Major Mc- 
Mahon and a numerous body of Indians and British. 
The assaulting party was repulsed with a heavy loss, 
but again renewed the attack and kept up a heavy 
and constant firing during the whole day. The enemy 
renewed the attack the next morning after the detach- 



General Anthony Wayne 397 

ment of Major McMahon had entered the fort and con- 
tinued with desperation during the day, hut was finally 
compelled to retreat from the very field where such a 
decisive victory had been achieved by the Indians on 
November 4, 1791. From the official report of Major 
Mills, adjutant-general of the army, it appears that 
twenty-two officers and non-commissioned officers were 
killed and among the number was Major McMahon. 
The loss of the enemy was very heavy but was not fully 
known until disclosed at the treaty of Greenville. 
Burnet, in his Notes on the North Western Territory, 
says that there could not have been less than fifteen 
hundred warriors engaged, while it was satisfactorily 
ascertained that a considerable number of British sol- 
diers and Detroit militia acted with the savages in that 
engagement. Jonathan Alden gives in his manuscript 
autobiography an account of the attack on the fort and 
says that Simon Girty was in the action. 

General Wayne having been reinforced by sixteen 
hundred mounted men from Kentucky, on July 26th, 
under the command of Major-general Scott, with whom 
he had served at the battle of Monmouth, left the 
encampment at Fort Greenville on the twenty-eighth 
of July, 1794, and advanced seventy miles northward 
into the heart of the Indian country. He built a fort 
at Grand Glaize, the junction of the Auglaize and the 
Maumee (Le Glaize and the Miami of the Lakes) rivers 
and proceeded to build Fort Defiance. General Wayne 
sent a message from Fort Defiance to the Indians 
along the Maumee on August 13, 1794. He offered 
them peace and invited them to send representatives 
to meet him in council and negotiate upon such terms 
as would protect their families and themselves. Little 
Turtle who had alwavs been first in battle counseled 



398 Orations and Historical Addresses 

peace, and advised the tribes, but his counsels were 
rejected: "We have beaten the enemy every time 
under separate commanders," said Little Turtle in a 
speech, "but we cannot expect the same good fortune 
always to attend us. The Americans are now led by 
a chief who never sleeps. The night and the day are 
alike to him, and during all the time he has been march- 
ing on the villages, notwithstanding the watchfulness 
of our young men, we have never been able to surprise 
him. Think well of it ! There is something whispers 
to me it would be prudent to listen to the offers of 
peace." 

The army moved forward on the fifteenth of August 
and on the eighteenth took a position at the head of 
the rapids and there established a magazine of supplies 
and baggage, which was called Fort Deposit. In the 
meantime, August 16th, the commissioner sent by Gen- 
eral Wayne returned with the message that if Gen- 
eral Wayne would remain at Grand Glaize they would 
decide for war or peace. Wayne was well advised of 
the movements of the enemy. Unlike St. Clair, he 
knew full well that Little Turtle with two thousand 
dusky warriors was only waiting for an opportunity 
to attack, while his line of communication with the 
Ohio river was secure by means of the complete chain 
of Forts— Fort Defiance, Fort Adams, Fort Recovery, 
Fort Greenville, Fort Jefferson, Fort St. Clair, Fort 
Hamilton and Fort Washington. 

The day before the battle of "Fallen Timbers" a 
council of war was called and a plan of march and 
battle submitted by Lieutenant William Henry Har- 
rison was adopted. This ofiScer was then but twenty- 
one years of age, and the military judgment of the 



General Anthony Wayne 399 

subaltern manifested itself as general in chief nine- 
teen years afterwards in the same Maumee Valley. 

Two thousand Indians and Canadian volunteers, on 
the twentieth of August, 1794, attacked the advance 
of the army of General Wayne from behind trees pros- 
trated by a tornado. The troops pressed forward with 
great energj^ and drove the enemy toward the guns 
of Fort Miami and the waters of the Maumee Bay. 
The victory was complete. General Wayne remained 
below the rapids with his victorious army for three 
days while he destroyed every product of the field 
and garden above and below the British fort, and even 
committed to the flames the extensive store houses and 
dwelling of Colonel Alexander McKee, the British 
agent, who had done so much to incite the Indians to 
hostility. The loss of the Americans in the engage- 
ment was thirty-three killed and one hundred wounded, 
including five officers among the killed, and nineteen 
wounded. General Wayne, after the engagement of 
Fallen Timbers was known among the Pottawatomies 
as "The Wind" because, as they said, at the battle 
on the twentieth of August he was exactly like the 
hurricane which drives and tears everything before it. 
He was known as "The Blacksnake" among other 
tribes. 

The ofiicial report of the engagement by General 
Wayne was dated Grand Glaize, August 28, 1794. It 
contains a detailed account of the movements and is 
interesting in that it contains exact historical informa- 
tion. After speaking of the march of the army from 
Fort Defiance on the fifteenth of August, and the ar- 
rival at Roche de Bouf on the eighteenth instant, and 
the work of the nineteenth in making a temporary post 
for the reception of stores and baggage and in recon- 



400 Orations and Historical Addresses 

noitering the position of the enemy, the report pro- 
ceeds : "At eight o 'clock on the morning of the twen- 
tieth the army again advanced in columns agreeably 
to the standing order of march : the legion on the right 
flank covered by the Miamis, one brigade of mounted 
volunteers on the left under Brigadier-general Todd, 
and the other in the rear under Brigadien-general 
Barbee : a select battalion of mounted volunteers moved 
in front of the legion commanded by Major Price who 
was directed to keep sufiBciently advanced, so as to give 
timely notice to form in case of action— it being yet 
undetermined whether the Indians would decide for 
peace or for war. 

"After advancing about five miles Major Price's 
corps received so severe a fii*e from the enemy, who 
were secreted in the woods and in the high grass, as 
to compel him to retreat. The legion was immediately 
formed in two lines principally in a close thick wood 
which extended for miles on our left and for a very 
considerable distance in front, the ground being cov- 
ered with old fallen timber, probably occasioned by a 
tornado, which rendered it impracticable for cavalry 
to act with effect, and afforded the enemy the most 
favorable covert for their savage mode of warfare. 
They were formed in three lines within supporting dis- 
tance of each other and extending nearly two miles at 
right angles with the river. I sooli discovered, from the 
weight of their fire and the extent of their lines, that 
the enemy were in full force in front, in possession of 
their favorite ground, and endeavoring to turn our 
left flank. I therefore gave orders for the second Hue 
to advance and support the first; and directed Major- 
general Scott to gain and turn the right flank of the 
savages, with the whole of the mounted volunteers, 



General Anthony Wayne 401 

by a circuitous route; at the same time ordered the 
front line to advance and charge with trailed arms and 
rouse the Indians from their coverts at the point of the 
bayonet, and when up, to deliver a close and well di- 
rected tire on their backs, followed by a brisk charge, 
so as not to give them time to load again. 

"I also ordered Captain Campbell, who commanded 
the legionary cavalry, to turn the left flank of the 
enemy next the river, and which afforded a favorable 
field for that corps to act. All these were obeyed 
with spirit and promptitude; but such was the im- 
petuosity of the charge by the first line of infantry, 
that the Indians and Canadian militia and volunteers, 
were driven from all their coverts in so short a time 
that although every possible exertion was used by the 
oflBcers of the second line of the legion, and by Generals 
Scott, Todd, and Barbee of the mounted volunteers, 
to gain their proper positions, but part of each could 
get up in season to participate in the action : the enemy 
being driven in the course of an hour, more than two 
miles, through the thick woods already mentioned, by 
less than one-half their number. From every account 
the enemy amounted to two thousand combatants. 

"The troops actually engaged against them were 
short of nine hundred. This horde of savages, with 
their allies, abandoned themselves to flight, and dis- 
persed with terror and dismay, leaving our \dctorious 
army in full and quiet possession of the field of battle, 
which tenninated under the influence of the guns of 
the British garrison, as you will observe from the in- 
closed correspondence between Major Campbell, the 
commandant and myself, upon the occasion." 

"* * * The loss of the enemy was more than that 
of the Federal army. The woods were strewed for a 



402 Orations and Historical Addresses, 

considerable distance with the dead bodies of Indians, 
and their white auxiliaries, the latter armed with 
British muskets and bayonets. We remained three 
days and nights on the banks of the Maumee, in front 
of the field of battle, during which time all the houses 
and cornfields were consumed and destroyed for a con- 
siderable distance both above and below Fort Miami, 
as well as within jjistol shot of the garrison, who were 
compelled to remain tacit spectators to this general 
devastation and conflagration, among which were the 
houses, stores and property of Colonel McKee, the 
British Indian agent, and the principal stimulator of 
the war between the United States and the savages." 
The report of General "Wayne states "that from 
every account the enemy amounted to two thousand 
combatants." It has always been impossible to as- 
certain with any degree of accuracy the force of the 
Indians in any battle. It is thought by some that the 
force under Little Turtle at St. Clair's defeat greatly 
outnumbered the Americans while others held to the 
contrary opinion. In the Western Annals will be 
found a statement by a Canadian taken prisoner in the 
battle of the "Fallen Timbers," who gives the fol- 
lowing estimate of the strength of the Indians: "That 
the Delawares have about five hundred men, including 
those who live on both rivers, the White river and 
Bean Creek: That the Shawnees have about three 
hundred warriors— part of them live on the St. 
Joseph's, eight leagues from this place: that the men 
were all in the action, but the women are yet at that 
place, or Piquets village: that a road leads from this 
l^lace directly to it: that the number of warriors be- 
longing to that i^lace, when altogether, amounts to 
about forty: that the Shawnees have about three hun- 



General Anthony Wayne 403 

dred warriors : that the Tawas, on this river, are two 
hundred and fifty : that the Wyandots are about three 
hundred: that those Indians were generally in the 
action on the twentieth, except some hunting parties : 
that a reinforcement of regular troops, and two hun- 
dred militia, arrived at Fort Miami a few days before 
the army appeared: that the regular troops in the 
fort amounted to two hundred and tifty, exclusive of 
the militia : that about seventy of the militia, including 
Captain Caldwell's Corps, were in the action. That 
Colonel McKee, Captain Elliott and Simon Girty were 
on the field, but at a respectable distance, and near the 
river : that the Indians have wished for peace for some 
time, but that Colonel McKee always dissuaded them 
from it, and stimulated them to continue the war." 

There is a tradition that Turkey Foot, an Ottawa 
Chief, fell at the foot of Presque Isle Hill while en- 
deavoring to rally the retreating warriors. He was 
pierced by a musket ball while standing on a large rock 
and encouraging his men. His tribe entertained so 
much affection for him that it is recorded that long 
years afterward when any of the tribe passed along 
the Maumee trail they would stoi) at the rock and linger 
for a time witli great manifestations of sorrow. The 
stone is still there within a few steps of the gently 
flowing Maumee with many rude figures of a Turkey- 
foot carved on it in memorial of the English name of 
the lamented Me-sa-sa, or Turkey Foot. 

The guns of Fort Miami kept silent although the 
men under Wayne's command followed the retreating 
Indians under the very embrasures. 

The correspondence between General Wayne and the 
British officer is not without interest, in view of the 
relations existing between the United States and Great 



404 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Britain at that time, and especially taken in connection 
with the fact that General Wayne was told by Secre- 
tary Knox that if in the course of his operations against 
the Indian enemy it should become necessary to dis- 
lodge the party (the English garrison at the Eapids 
of the Miami) he was authorized in the name of the 
president of the United States to do it. These In- 
dians of the North West were the Shawnees and 
the Delawares — generally called the Miamis— who had 
taken refuge in Ohio after the capture of Fort Du- 
Quesne by Bouquet in 1763. With the Wyandots, the 
Miamis, the Chippewas, and the Pottawatomies they 
formed a powerful confederacy in the northwest por- 
tion of Ohio, near the river Maumee, then called Miami 
of the Lake, and Lake Erie. There was constant com- 
munication with the Indians further west and the 
Canadians, as well as with the English garrisons at 
Detroit and at certain smaller posts along the borders 
of the lake. Not only did the English government 
establish garrisons in the very midst of these hostile 
Indians but the letters from Colonel McKee to Colonel 
England, the British commandant at Detroit, during 
the campaign of Wayne, and published in the National 
Intelligencer in 1814, show the feeling of Great Britain 
toward the American arms. In a letter dated at the 
Rapids, July 5, 1794, Colonel McKee alludes to the 
attack on Fort Recovery on the thirtieth of June pre- 
ceding, and says that "everything had been settled 
prior to their leaving the Fallen Timbers, and it had 
been agreed upon to confine themselves to taking con- 
voys and attacking at a distance from the forts, if they 
should have the address to entice the enemy out" * 
* * In a subsequent letter written from the Rapids 
and dated August 13, 1794, Colonel McKee advises 



General Anthony Wayne 405 

Colonel England that "Scouts are sent up to view the 
situation of the army (Wayne's) and we now muster 
one thousand Indians. All the Lake Indians from 
Saginaw downwards should not lose one moment in 
joining their brethren, as every accession of strength 
is an addition to their spirits." The celebrated speech 
of Tecumseh to Proctor after Perry's victory shows, 
too, that the Indians had regarded the British as real 
allies and had relied upon their assurances of friend- 
ship. 

Fort Miami was built in the spring of 1794 by Gov- 
ernor Simcoe, of Canada. One of the grievances 
against the Bi'itish goverament was the retention of 
the posts held by English garrisons within our terri- 
tory in violation of the treaty of peace of 1783. When 
the battle of Fallen Timbers took place the negotia- 
tions which ended in Jay's treaty were in progress, 
but when the news of the victory over the Indians 
reached the British ministry, an agreement was soon 
reached by which their posts were to be evacuated— 
the principal of which were at Detroit, Oswego, Niag- 
ara, Mackinac and Fort Miami. Major Campbell, the 
next day after the battle, addressed this note to General 
Wayne, "An army of the United States of America, 
said to be under your command, having taken post on 
the banks of the Miami (Maumee), for upwards of 
the last twenty-four hours, almost within reach of the 
guns of this fort, being a post belonging to his Majesty 
the King of Great Britain, occupied by his Majesty's 
troops, and which I have the honor to command, it 
becomes my duty to inform myself, as speedily as pos- 
sible, in what light I am to view your making such 
near approaches to this garrison. I have no hesita- 



406 Orations and Historical Addresses 

tioD, on my i^art, to say that I know of no war existing 
between Great Britain and America." 

General Wajme replied at once to this demand. * 
• * ""Without questioning the authority or the pro- 
priety, sir, of your interrogation, I think I may with- 
out breach of decorum, observe to you, that were you 
entitled to an answer, the most full and satisfactory 
one was announced to you from the muzzles of my 
small arms, yesterday morning, in the action against 
the horde of savages in the vicinity of your post, which 
terminated gloriously to the American arms; but, had 
it continued until the Indians, etc., were driven under 
the influence of the post and guns you mention, they 
would not have much impeded the progress of the 
victorious army under my conunand, as no such post 
was established at the commencement of the present 
war between the Indians and the United States." 

Major Campbell prefaced his reply the next day 
with the statement that he had foreborne for the past 
two days, to resent the insults which had been offered 
to the British flag flying at the Fort. * * * "But," 
continues Major Campbell, "should you, after this, 
continue to approach my post in the threatening man- 
ner you are at tliis moment doing, my indispensable 
duty to my king and country, and the honor of my 
profession, will oblige me to have recourse to those 
measures which thousands of either nation may here- 
after have cause to regret, and which I solemnly appeal 
to God I have used my utmost endeavor to arrest." 

When this communication was received. General 
Wayne, in company with General Wilkinson, Lieuten- 
ant William Henry Harrison and other officers, re- 
connoitered Fort Miami in every direction. It was 



General Anthony Wayne 407 

found to be a strong work, the front covered by the 
Miami of the Lake (Maumee), and protected by four 
guns. The rear had two regular bastions furnished 
with eight pieces of artillery, the whole surrounded 
by a wide, deep ditch, about twenty-five feet deep from 
the top of the parapet. It is said to have been gar- 
risoned by four hundred and fifty soldiers. 

General Wayne then sent a note to Major Campbell 
stating that the only cause he had to entertain the 
opinion that there was a war existing between Great 
Britain and America was the hostile act of taking post 
far within the well known and acknowledged limits 
of the United States, and erecting a fortification in 
the heart of the settlements of the Indian tribes now 
at war with the United States. * * * "I do hereby 
desire and demand, in the name of the president of 
the United States, that you immediately desist from 
any further acts of hostility or aggression by forbear- 
ing to fortify and by withdrawing the troops, artillery, 
and stores under your order and direction, forthwith, 
and removing to the nearest post occupied by his Bri- 
tannic Majesty's troops at the peace of 1783, and which 
you will be permitted to do unmolested by the troops 
under my command." 

Major Campbell instantly replied in effect that he 
was placed there in command of a British post and 
acting in a military capacity only, and that the right 
or propriety of his present position should be left to 
the ambassadors of the different nations. He was 
much deceived if his Majesty, the King of Great 
Britain, had not a post on this river at and prior to 
the Treaty of 1783. "Having said thus much," con- 
tinued Major Campbell, "permit me to inform you 
that I certaiulv will not abandon this post at the sum- 



408 Orations and Historical Addresses 

mons of any power whatever, until I receive orders 
for that purpose from those I have the honor to serve, 
or the fortunes of war should oblige me. I must still 
adhere, sir, to the purport of my letter this morning, 
to desire that your army or individuals belonging to 
it, will not approach within reach of my cannon, with- 
out expecting the consequences attending it." 

Within less than twenty years from the very day 
that the correspondence passed between these two offi- 
cers there was a formal declaration of war between 
the United States and Great Britain; and within less 
than twenty years the same William Henry Harrison, 
then commanding the armies of the United States, 
heard the thunder of Perry's guns as they proclaimed 
that the American arms had undisputed possession of 
the Lake. 

The army returned to Fort Defiance on August 27th, 
laying waste the villages and cornfields of the enemy 
for many miles. The Indians, defeated and utterly 
disheartened, retired to the borders of the Maumee 
Bay. 

General Wayne moved from Fort Defiance on Sep- 
tember 14th, in the direction of the Miami Village and 
reached the confluence of the St. Joseph's and St. 
Mary's Kivers on the seventeenth of the month. The 
site of a fort was selected by General Wayne himself 
on the eighteenth, and on the twenty-second of Octo- 
ber a strong fortification was completed, which was 
garrisoned by a detachment under Major Hamtramck, 
who, after firing a salute of fifteen guns, gave it the 
name of Fort Wayne, the site of the present pros- 
perous city of that name. 

The object of the campaign having been fully ac- 
complished, the Legion moved from Fort Wayne on 



General Anthony Wayne 409 

the twenty-eighth of October and reached Fort Green- 
ville on the evening of November 2, 1794, when it was 
saluted with thirty-five guns from a six pounder. The 
army had marched from Fort Greenville for the cam- 
paign of the North West on the twenty-eighth day of 
July, 1794, and now returned to winter quarters after 
an arduous and fatiguing expedition of ninety-seven 
days, during which time it had marched and counter- 
marched upwards of three hundred miles through the 
heart of the enemy's country, cutting a wagon-road 
the entire distance, besides constructing three fortifi- 
cations—Fort Adams, at the St. Mary's, Fort Defiance, 
at Au Glaize, and Fort Wayne, at the Miami Villages. 

The Indians of the North West had been completely 
subdued and a lasting peace had been accomplished. 
The anns, too, of the United States had been vindi- 
cated from the shame of defeat and disaster. It was 
the beginning of an era of prosperity and the tide of 
immigration at once set in for new homes and new set- 
tlements. The future now lay in the direction of the 
cultivation of all the arts of peace. The pioneers 
began to find their way to the valleys of the Miamis, 
the Scioto, and the Muskingum, so that the population 
of the North West, before the close of the year 1796, 
was estimated at five thousand souls. 

The treaty of Greenville, negotiated by General 
Wayne on the part of the United States, was con- 
cluded on the third day of August, 1795. There were 
eleven hundred and thirty sachems and warriors 
present or parties to this celebrated treaty. 

By the treaty the Indians ceded to the United States 
about twenty-five thousand square miles of territory, 
besides sixteen separate tracts, including lands and 
forts. The Indians received in consideration of these 



410 Orations and Historical Addresses, 

cessions goods of the value of twenty thousand dol- 
lars, as presents, and were promised an annual allow- 
ance of nine thousand, five hundred dollars to be 
equally divided among the parties to the treaty. 

It has been almost a century since that eventful day 
in August, 1795, when the treaty of Greenville was 
ofiScially proclaimed. Every soul who participated in 
the council has passed away, and yet the influence of 
that instrument lives in the progress and advance- 
ment of the great North West. It saved defenceless 
settlements from the tomahawk and scalping knife of 
the Indian, and supplanted the harsher tones of strife 
and bloodshed with the softer enactments of charity 
and love. Anthony Wayne will be remembered not 
less for the treaty of Greenville than for the battle of 
the Fallen Timbers. 

The last public service performed by General Wayne 
was to receive the surrender of the northern posts 
by the British government in 1796, at the fort of the 
Maumee Kapids, together with the town of Detroit and 
the military works both there and on the island of 
Mackinac, in pursuance of the provisions of the 
Treaty negotiated by Chief Justice Jay in 1783. 
General Wayne was appointed by the government to 
conduct this delicate and yet most important commis- 
sion. He was invested with the powers of a civil coro- 
missioner as well as those of a military commander. 
In every instance he carried out the fonnalities of the 
transfer to the American government with rare judg- 
ment but with ofiScial courtesy. He visited Detroit in 
September and remained at that post for two months. 
The Indians, who had gathered there in numbers, wel- 
comed him with noisy demonstrations, and it is said 
that he was a jDOwerful means in encouraging and per- 



General Anthony Wayne 411 

petuating a lasting influence between them and their 
former enemies. 

It must have been a great satisfaction to have re- 
ceived the transfer of Fort Miami, under whose guns 
he bade defiance to its commandant, and the surrender 
of which, with the other posts, was hastened by his 
brilliant campaigTi. 

The last post he was ordered to visit was Fort Erie, 
and on the seventeenth of November, 1796, he sailed 
from Detroit to execute this commission. On the way 
he was seized with an attack of the gout, and was 
removed from the vessel in a dying condition. It is 
related that at tlie beginning of the battle of Fallen 
Timbers, about ten o'clock in the morning, he was 
suffering the most intense pain from the gout, so that 
not only were his limbs swathed in flannels but it 
became necessary to lift him upon his horse. In the 
excitement of the battle, however, he became as active 
as any of his officers. General St. Clair was almost 
incapacitated for duty by a similar attack on the field 
of his defeat, while Little Turtle, chief of the Miamis, 
and who commanded on that day of Federal disaster, 
died thirty years after the Treaty of Greenville of the 
gout at Fort Wayne, and was accorded a soldier's 
burial, with muffled drums and a funeral salute. 

General Wayne died December 15, 1796, in bis fifty- 
second year, and was buried according to his last re- 
quest at the foot of the flag-staff at Fort Erie on the 
borders of the Lake. Perhaps the dying hero saw in its 
turbulent waves, at times, something of his own un- 
conquerable will and, at others, in its peaceful waters 
that quiet which would come at last to his own restless 
soul. 

On July 4, 1809, his remains were reinterred in the 



412 Orations and Historical Addresses 

cemetery of the Church of St. David's in Radnor, Del- 
aware county, Pennsylvania, under the military escort 
of the Philadelphia city troop. The funeral oration 
was delivered by Reverend David Jones, his chaplain, 
and who had been with him in camp and council and 
battlefield. The shaft erected to his memory bears 
this inscription on the north front: "Major General 
Anthony Wayne was born at Waynesborough, in Ches- 
ter county, state of Pennsylvania, A. D. 1745. After a 
life of honor and usefulness he died in December, 1796, 
at a military post on the shores of Lake Erie, com- 
mander-in-chief of the armies of the United States. 
His military achievements are commemorated in the 
history of his country and in the hearts of his country- 
men. His remains are here deposited." 

On the south front it reads: "In honor of the dis- 
tinguished military services of Major-general An- 
thony Wayne, and as an affectionate tribute of respect 
to his memory, this stone was erected by his compan- 
ions-in-arms, The Pennsylvania State Society of the 
Cincinnati, July 4, 1809, thirty-fourth anniversary of 
the independence of the United States of America, an 
event which constitutes the most appropriate eulogium 
of an American soldier and patriot." 

One hundred years have passed since that day in 
August when this beautiful Maumee Valley echoed 
with musketrj^ and resounded with the war cry of the 
savage. The harvests are now being peacefully 
gathered to their garners, and the songs of home are 
uninvaded by the cries and terrors of battle. 

It is not, then, too soon to say that history must de- 
clare it a decisive battle. It is true that it must pale 
before the mighty achievements of the late ci\dl war, 
when vast armies were picked up on the banks of the 



General Anthony Wayne 413 

Potomac aud dropped on the bants of the Cumberland 
and Tennessee, and when the shouts of more than a 
million of men mingled with the roar of the oceans as 
they passed on in the serried ranks of war. The re- 
sults are scarcely less lasting, for it ended in the com- 
plete subjugation of the tribes of the North West, and 
enforced for the first time the provisions of the treaty 
of peace of 1783, by which British power was forever 
destroyed in the territory northwest of the Ohio river. 
It opened the solemn and mysterious forest which ex- 
tended in melancholy wastes from the Alleghenies to- 
ward the distant Mississippi to millions of freemen, 
and the soil which had been gathering fertility from 
the repose of centuries began to bud and blossom of 
the rose under an intelligent husbandry. It gave birth 
to a new era in American civilization, and five great 
commonwealths bear witness that education and moral- 
ity are the foundations of a good government. As 
we stand on this consecrated ground, where the ordi- 
nance of 1787 was enforced by the guns of Anthony 
Wayne, we hail the states of Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 
gan and Wisconsin, children of the Great Ordinance 
and shining stars in the crowded galaxy of our flag. 
Oliio looks with them to the Federal Constitution as 
the covenant of a perpetual union, and cherishes their 
history as a common heritage and their prosperity as 
a common blessing. In the spirit of a broader pa- 
triotism Ohio feels an abiding affection for every part 
of our common country, and pledges to the govern- 
ment which here fought the battle for all the full 
measure of devotion to every call of duty. 

The services which General WajTie rendered during 
the war of the Revolution are a part of the history 
of the country. He had that strong will which often 



414 Orations and Historical Addresses 

governs with absolute sway and bends men and cir- 
cumstances to one's purpose. It was, perhaps, this 
characteristic that marked him in councils of war, 
and gave him the appellation among the soldiers of 
"Mad Anthony," not a term of derision but one indi- 
cating strength of will and purpose. It is related 
that when summoned to councils of war he usually sat 
apart and read "Tom Jones," or some interesting 
novel, while the officers discussed the proposed meas- 
ures. When they had severally given their opinion 
the cormnander-in-chief would inquire of Wayne, 
"Well, General, what do you propose to do?" "Fight, 
sir," is said to have been the invariable response. 

It was always his concern that the interests of the 
country should not suffer in his hands, and whether 
as a young brigadier stationed at the ford at Brandy- 
vdne to oppose Knyphausen, or selected to lead 
the attack at Germantown, or at the head of a column 
at Monmouth to stay the British advance after the 
retreat had been ordered by Lee, or in the defence of 
Stony Point, the most important fortified point on the 
Hudson, which was committed to him after Arnold's 
treason had struck the army and the country with con- 
sternation, or whether entrusted with an independent 
command to drive out of Georgia a large British force 
aided by several tribes of hostile Indians, or whether 
the army of the United States was entrusted to his com- 
mand after two disastrous defeats west of the Ohio, 
he courageously and fearlessly discharged his whole 
duty. 

If the love of glory was the master passion of Gen- 
eral Wayne, as stated by one of his eulogists, then 
his sensitive nature must have been overwhelmed by 
plaudits and thanks both public and private. He waa 



General Anthony Wayne 415 

thanked by the congress of the United States and 
awarded a gold medal for his successful assault on 
Stony Point, and among the many congratulatory let- 
ters from his brother officers were those of General 
Arthur St. Clair and General Lee with whom he was 
not on friendly terms. The President of the United 
States conveyed to him expressions of the warmest ap- 
probation and the highest respect for his victoiy 
against the Indians of the North West, while the con- 
gress, then in session, unanimously adopted resolu- 
tions highly complimentary to General Wayne and the 
whole army. His visit to Philadelphia in February, 
1796, after the Treaty of Greenville, and an absence 
of more than three years, was a triumphal procession. 
He was met by three troops of the Philadelphia Light 
Horse four miles from the city, and received a salute 
of artillery on crossing the Schuylkill. He was then 
conducted through the streets amidst the sound of mar- 
tial music, the ringing of bells, the roaring of cannon 
and the acclamations of a grateful people. There was 
the highest evidence of the universal sense entertained 
of the important services he had rendered. 

The grateful citizens of Edinboro have erected on 
Calton Hill overlooking the Scottish Capitol, a me- 
morial of surpassing proportions to conunemorate 
Lord Nelson and the great victory of Trafalgar. The 
inscription recites that it is placed there, not so much 
to express their unavailing sorrow for his death, nor 
to celebrate the matchless glories of his life, but by 
his noble example to teach their sons to emulate what 
they admire, and, when duty requires, like him, to die 
for their country. 

In like spirit a stately shaft will rise at no distant 
day from this consecrated place, not only erected by 



416 Orations and Historical Addresses 

a grateful and patriotic people to the memory of An- 
thony WajTie and the brave men who fought the battle 
of "Fallen Timbers" but to perpetuate as an example 
for the coming generations the story of their unselfish 
patriotism. 



THE DELTA KAPPA EPSILON FRATER- 
NITY; ITS IDEALS AND MISSION 

"From every I'egion of .Egea's shore 
The brave assembled * * * 
Led by the goldeu stars, as Chiron's art 
Had marked the sphere celestial." 

There is a story of Pliiloi5oeinen, the last of the 
Greeks, that he entered the theatre at the time of the 
Nemean games attended by the young men in their 
scarlet vests and military cloaks. It was just after 
the victory of Mantinea, and the young men were not 
a little elated themselves with the many battles they 
had foiTght and the glory they had won. In the mo- 
ment that they all entered the musician happened to 
be singing to his lyre the Persae of Timotheus, and was 
pronouncing the verse : 

"The palm of liberty for C4reece I won," 

when the people, struck with the grandeur of the poetry 
and inspired by the glorious presence of the gallant 
youth, from every part of the theatre at once 
turned their ej^es upon Philopoemen and welcomed him 
with the loudest plaudits. They caught in idea, says 
the historian, the ancient dignity of their countiy, and 
in their present confidence aspired to the lofty spirit 
of former times. 

This page from classic history has suggested some 
fitting thoughts for an address to a fraternity which 

Delivered on the Semi-Centennial of the Fraternity in 
New York City, November 15, 1894. 
27 [417] 



418 Orations and Historical Addresses 

comprebends so much of the young culture and aspir- 
ing manhood of our American colleges— a fraternity 
not only characterized by a radiant wealth of true and 
lasting friendship, but where every purpose is in the 
direction of scholarly attainments and right views of 
citizenship and public duty. The loyalty of her sons 
has broadened and deepened with the succeeding years, 
so that on this semi-centennial occasion we have an 
abiding affection for her associations, a just pride in 
her traditions, and a suj^reme faith in her future. 

Fifty years have passed since the organization of 
this Greek-letter society. The history of those years 
is a chapter roll embracing thirty-five of the repre- 
sentative institutions of learning in the country, with 
not less than twenty-two alumnal associations and or- 
ganizations, and a membership of not less than ten 
thousand names. Much could be written of those who 
have worshiped at the shrine of the Fraternity and 
there paid their vows. In the record of the past half cen- 
tuiy there are names which have been most influential 
in directing State and national legislation; names which 
have adorned the science of jurisprudence and theology 
and medicine, and which will live in the literatures of 
the professions; names of scientists and professors 
and authors and editors who have largely influenced 
public opinion upon measures of public policy; names 
of soldiers who rendered the full measure of their de- 
votion on fields of battle, while the pages of the Fra- 
ternity are resplendent with the glory of her sons in 
the mighty struggle to preserve the Union. A society 
thus animated by a lofty purpose and with a perpetual 
succession may well review her annals and mark the 
stages of growth to the meridian of a century, and 



The Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity 419 

may well invite public judgment to the spirit and ob- 
ject of her existence. 

Delta Kappa Epsilon is intrenched in a continent. 
Maine, with her forest-crowned mountains, exchanges 
fraternal greetings with California, with her snow- 
capped diadem. The brave have assembled from 
even^ region of Aegea's shore— from Yale and Bow- 
doin and Colby and Amherst and Vanderbilt and 
Brown and Miami and Kenyon and Dartmouth and 
Middlebury and Williams and La Fayette and Hamil- 
ton and Madison and the College of the City of New 
York and Eochester and Rutgers and DePauw and 
Wesleyan and Rensselaer and Adelbert and Cornell 
and Chicago and Syracuse and Columbia and Trinity 
and the universities of Alabama and Mississippi and 
North Carolina and Virginia and the Central of Ken- 
tucky and Michigan and California and Minnesota and 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology'. In the 
language of the Twelfth Night, we even "unclasp the 
book of our secret soul" to the surviving brethren of 
Zeta, of New Jersey; and Delta of South Carolina; 
Omega, of Oakland, Mississii)pi; Theta Chi, of Union; 
Kappa Psi, of Cumberland; Zeta Zeta, of Centenary, 
Louisiana; Alpha Delta, of Jefferson; Tau Delta, of 
Union, Tennessee; Kai^pa Phi, of Troy; and Eta 
Alpha, of Washington and Lee. 

The Latin poet says that to have been born in the 
early age was to have been of the heroic race of men, 
and that the ancient rulers of the Trojan line must 
have been greater than the family which occupied the 
throne when Phyrrus stood before the walls of Ilium. 
A just respect for the faith we hold so dear requires 
that we mention with gratitude to-night the founders 
of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity— the ancient 



420 Orations mid Historical Addresses 

rulers of the Trojan line. The Fraternity which they 
established has nothing of age save its dignity, and 
her strength is the strength of youth. The fellowship 
of the young and the brave and the stalwart will be 
enlisted as one academic year succeeds another, so 
that as we turn from the past we can look with sublime 
confidence to the future; 

"When at last our hearts grow chill 
And turn to silent dust, 
We shall not die, for brave hearts still 
Shall keep the ancient trust. ' ' 

In the great busy world which lies beyond the col- 
lege walls there will be found many who are demanding 
the honors and rewards of society. The Fraternity 
badge will not accomplish much unless accompanied 
by a gentlemanly bearing. Well-directed effort is 
more potent than genius unemployed. If the Persian 
youth acquired something of a dignity by having been 
educated in the palace of the king, so should the very 
associations of fraternity life stimulate a sincere com- 
radeship, and an earnest effort and a strong enthusiasm 
for all that makes for the good of college life and the 
career of maturer days. There must be progress. 
There must be the marching forward. John Ruskin, 
after he had filled his mind with untold riches in the 
field of art research, was not to be compared with the 
John Ruskin when he left the walls of Oxford. Daniel 
AVebster, when he expounded the Federal constitution 
in the senate of the United States, and declared the 
very principles for the centuries upon which free repre- 
sentative government alone can rest, was not to be com- 
pared with Daniel Webster when he left the walls of 
Dartmouth College. It is possible for almost every 



The Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity 421 

college graduate to become a right-thinking man; but 
with the proper culture of the heart and the mind, the 
education of Commencement Day is not worthy to be 
mentioned with the advancement of middle life. The 
development of the young man nmst advance with the 
ministry of the best thoughts and the noblest ideals 
and the most retined sympathies. 

Cicero, who was, perhaps, the broadest scholar of 
the pagan age, says in his essay on the Republic that 
"at no point of thought and feeling does man's nature 
resemble more the Divine nature than when the states- 
man is founding and caring for the commonwealth." 
There can be no greater duty than a ser\'ice conse- 
crated to a well-equipped state, which guards the liberty 
and industry and education of its dependent millions. 
It is the genius of the Fraternity that her young men 
should go out into society with the restless spirit of 
inquiry; that they should go back of phenomena and 
seek the cause; that they should not be sophists— those 
who know, but rather those who wish to know; that 
they should discover for themselves the laws by which 
events come to pass ; that they should trace the brook- 
lets in the valley up to the mountain sources, and follow 
the hidden hand that is painting cloud-pictures on the 
sky or wave-pictures on the sea. Great principles 
come out of intellectual activity. Despotisms are 
borne of ignorance alone. It is necessary for some- 
body to think; for while some men think for themselves, 
it is not the less true that many men think as others 
think, or do not think at all. Thought may create a 
wide discontent, but it is generally followed by 
a better endeavor. There is in every society 
a sentiment suspicious and jealous of all free- 



422 Orations and Historical Addresses 

dom of thouglit unless it can be regulated by 
some civil or ecclesiastical authority; but the true end 
of all human inquiry should be the endowment of hu- 
man life with new riches and new beauties and new 
inventions. This is the aim of scholarship. A mod- 
ern writer truthfully observes that Roman civiliza- 
tion died in the death of the literary spirit, and when a 
better national life reappeared it first presented itself 
at the doors of the universities. 

William Hazlitt, in his Tahle Talk, observes that 
any one who has passed through the regular gradations 
of a classical education and is not made a fool thereby 
may consider himself as having had a narrow escape. 
It must be confessed that pedantry is almost as ob- 
jectionable as ignorance ; but no one can read the mag- 
nificent oration on the studies which Archias taught 
without being impressed with the necessity of giving 
attention to classical pursuits, not only for benefit, but 
for i^leasure as well. Xenophon, in the SjTuposium, 
has one of his guests say, "My father, anxious that 
I should become a good man, made me learn all the 
poems of Homer, and now I could repeat the whole 
Iliad and Odyssey by heart." Perhaps this standard 
is high, but a college graduate who is unsuccessful in 
practical life, with the preparation afforded by a regu- 
lar college curriculum, could hardly hope for prefer- 
ment without a knowledge of the Tusculan Disputa- 
tions. The trouble to-day is that young men are taught 
to believe that there is an antagonism between culture 
and practical success, and that learning, in the best 
sense, is inconsistent with public affairs. Indeed, po- 
litical life is exhibited to the young and aspiring in 
its most repulsive form, like the drunken Helot to the 
youths of Sparta, as a warning and as an example. 



The Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity 423 

Scholarship should stand near the people so that they 
can be familiar with the laws and duties that spring 
from the relations of man to man. Scholarship must 
stand near the people that the greater truths may come. 
The student as the representative of thought, the 
student as the inspiration of freedom, is demanded. 

It cannot be doubted that the first colonial colleges 
were practically patterned after the old transatlantic 
colleges, whose forms and curricula may be traced to 
median-al influences. The theological tendency, too, 
was manifest, if not dominant, in early colonial educa- 
tion. To-day there is a demand that the individual 
be prepared for the duties which belong to the citizen. 
Free government can only be made secure by an ever- 
increasing morality and intelligence. If sovereignty 
is to be imiversal, education should be universal. An 
enlightened citizenship is the security of the republic. 
The university is a mighty influence in the future of 
the country. Learning is patriotism, in that it not 
only enables the citizen to demand what is due to him- 
self, but makes him concede what is due to others. It 
lifts the man up to a proper appreciation of his rights 
as well as his obligations. Thus liberty and learning 
have always contended together against despotism and 
wrong. The scholars have always stood for popular 
rights. Suffrage is the most sacred privilege of the 
citizen. If not directed by intelligence and patriotism 
and conscience, it will be exercised with ignorance and 
selfishness and corruption. If good men do not go to 
the councils of the people, then bad men will control 
public affairs. Public clamor may sometimes be mis- 
taken for an enlightened public opinion. 

The young men who have the superior advantages 
of our universities and colleges cannot afford to as- 



-l:2-4 Orations and Historical Addresses 

sume a dignity greater even than the nation itself. 
ScholarshiiJ cannot afford to wait to be invited to pub- 
lic life; it must go from a grander imijulse than self. 
It cannot afford to reserve itself for the more stately 
occasions, which are but periodical, nor should it act 
alone for the more critical emergencies, which are but 
temjiorary. Nothing is unworthy the best thought in 
science or in law or in literature or in religion which 
may contribute in any way to the welfare of a republic 
for which more than one million of men were ready to 
die. It would be a calamity hardly less terrible than 
civil war itself if the best thought and the best culture 
and the best conscience should voluntarily or involun- 
tarily be divorced from all active sympathy with our 
l^olitical or social institutions. Mr. Gladstone, in an 
article in the North American Review, in September, 
1878, declared that there could hardly be a doubt as 
between the America and England of the future— 
that the daughter at some no very distant time, whether 
fairer or less fair, would unquestionably be stronger 
than the mother. This prophecy will not be realized 
unless all the forces of intelligence and conscience shall 
tend to the peace, i^rosjjerity, and general good of 
society. Our national importance will not be deter- 
mined by our geographical jjroportions, our wealth, 
our militaiy strength, but by the stability of the ad- 
ministrative power and by the civil and social institu- 
tions of the commonwealth. Gibbon calls the period 
of the Caesars the golden age of the world, because his- 
tory has never witnessed greater coraraei'cial enter- 
prise, more industrial activity, and a more magnificent 
creation and display of wealth and splendor; but the 
student of Gibbon cannot read of the decline and fall 
of the Roman Empire and the artful policy of the 



The Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity 425 

Caesars, who long maiutainecl the name and image of 
a free republic, without being impressed with the loss 
on the part of the people of the very spirit of citizen- 
ship. De Tocqueville observed that the great danger 
of a democracy is that unless guarded it merges into 
despotism. 

The Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity believes that 
the aim of generous scholarship should be towards 
creating and keeping alive a sound public opinion upon 
all subjects of morality and philosophy, of science and 
politics. The Fraternity believes that the potency of 
scholarshi}") will be found in a ripened public opinion. 
Public opinion penetrates the mighty mass of human 
action. It is the voice of the pen, the pulpit, the study, 
the bar, the forum, just as every raindrop and every 
dewdrop and every misty exhalation which reflects 
the I'ainbow contributes to swell the mountain stream 
or the ocean flood. Without general morality there 
can be no sound commonwealth, for the better the 
party, the better the government. It is the teaching 
of liistory that in an absolute monarchy there will al- 
ways be a tendency to despotism, in an aristocracy 
toward an oligarchy, in a democracy toward anarchy. 
The feature of all democratic forms of government 
has been described as an occasional burst of patriotism 
with a splendid effort, followed by dejection, anarchy, 
and misrule— a stormy night, illumined by occasional 
flashes of lightning, never by the steady radiance of 
the morning sun. 

It is the glory of America that it stands for citizen- 
ship; but no one can follow the pages of Hallam in 
his Constitutional History, or Macaulay as he tells of 
England, or our own Bancroft as he traces the history 
of our people from the Colonial period to the time 



426 Orations and Historical Addresses 

of the Eepublic, without a consciousness that the spirit 
which gives liberty its living power must be preserved 
lest it be lost in the worship of its symbols. The Delta 
Kappa Epsilon Fraternity believes that the Republic 
has a right to the best zeal and the noblest affection 
of every citizen, and looks with an ever-increasing 
faith that the country may be glorified through the 
devotion of her sons and the patriotism of their scholar- 
ship. 

It cannot be doubted but that the Greek-letter so- 
cieties are one of the most significant features of 
American college life. Secrecy is cherished only to the 
end that there may be a better development of the 
social and intellectual spirit, while the letters of the 
Greek alphabet are selected as representative of the 
culture they represent. Membership is a recognized 
privilege as well as a distinction, and they are now 
regarded as the most influential agency by which a 
community of feeling and life can be awakened among 
the colleges of the eountiy. The secrecy which is 
maintained has the same relation to the Fraternity 
life that a proper reserve has to the character of a 
gentleman. "It is secret," says a writer, who is one 
of the best exemplifications of the ideal scholar and 
gentlemen, "in the same sense in which every union 
of affection, eveiy meeting of friends, every intimate 
exchange of thought by correspondence or in the fam- 
ily circle is secret. It wears its secrecy as lightly as 
a cheerful and united household, simply as a security 
for the unreserved freedom of friendly intercourse and 
the closeness of brotherhood. The mystic name, with 
its significance known only to the initiated, is precious 
as a symbol of protection against the criticism and 
possible misreiDresentation of an unfriendly world, a 



The Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity 427 

pledge of perfect freedom for whatever may be wortli- 
ily said or done in tlie fellowship of a gentleman." 

Nothing certainly can be more useful and instructive 
to young men who are acquiring a liberal education 
and preparing themselves for the more important 
spheres of practical life in literature and eloquence 
and public action than the companionship of the 
worthiest. Nothing can be more desirable than the 
associations of a fraternity whose traditions are the 
best expression of the successive college classes of one- 
half a century in the leading educational institutions 
of the land. Dr. Thomas Arnold, the devoted scholar 
and great schoolmaster, pronounced it his highest aim 
to make the boys entmsted to his care to feel like 
Christian gentlemen. The word "gentleman" was 
formed, says one, before gentle came to mean kindli- 
ness of soul; and a gentleman signifies that character 
which is distinguished by strict honor, generous as well 
as refined feeling; a character to which all meanness is 
foreign, and to which an essential truthfulness, and a 
courage, both moral and physical, and a proper self- 
respect as well as a resjiect for others, are habitual 
and have become natural. The same writer adds that 
the character of the gentleman implies, further, a re- 
finement of feeling and a loftiness of conduct to the 
right dictates of morality and the j^urifying precepts 
of religion. Those who listen to grand old Plato, in 
the Eleventh Book of his Dialogues, when he says, in 
the form of an invocation, "May I, being of sound 
mind, do to others as I would they should do to me," 
will have the gentlemanly instinct, and will narrowly 
escape, if at all, the gentlemanly bearing. The prin- 
ciple of the golden rule underlies our public and pri- 
vate justice, our society, our charity, our religion. 



428 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Talfourd's words, uttered on the bench in a case 
tried at the Bristol Assizes, are instructive. "Gen- 
tleman," said the learned judge, "is a term which 
does not apply to any station. The man of rank who 
deports himself with dignity and candor, and the 
tradesman who discharges the duties of life with honor 
and integrity, are alike entitled to it; nay, the humblest 
citizen who fulfills the obligations cast upon him with 
virtue and honor is more entitled to the name gentle- 
man than the man who could indulge in offensive and 
ribald remarks, however big his station." Nor is the 
title even unbecoming a king. Pistol, in Henry V., 
calls himself as "good a gentleman as the Emperor"; 
while Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Lord Chan- 
cellors, informs us that when the Commons in 1640 
were unwilling to vote supplies to Charles before send- 
ing their grievances, they were told by Lord Keeper 
Finch that they should freely vote the money, for ' ' they 
had the word of a king, and not only so, but the word 
of a gentleman." 

The Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, then, not only 
stands for that broad and enduring conception of cul- 
ture which comprehends all branches of mental activity, 
but looks as well to the association of gentlemen for 
the highest social development. The ideals of mem- 
bership will be found in the scholar and the gentle- 
man. The primary purpose of the organization was 
the cultivation of a bond of sympathy between the 
youthful students of our American colleges in pursuit 
of the higher objects of education. This force, too, 
is receiving recognition in college government. The 
chapters of fifty years ago were mere students' clubs, 
govenied by the decrees of the faculty. The altered 
condition of college culture is due in no small degree 



The Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity 429 

to the Fraternity movement. The student must be 
largely influenced by the moral force of his chosen 
associations. The time seems to be approaching when 
"student government" is to be regarded as well as 
"college government," and when the responsibility 
for the personal conduct of the student will be left to 
the students themselves. The Faculty of Amherst Col- 
lege has called to its aid a committee of students as 
the guardians of college order, while Bowdoin College 
has placed the discipline of the college in the hands of 
the students. This course arises, doubtless, largely 
from the influence of the Greek-letter societies and the 
very idea of stability and dignity which at once sur- 
rounds the Greek homesteads. A just pride in the 
name alone must give direction to every movement 
for the preservation of college order. The chapter 
houses are the embodiment of a tender sentiment, and 
with their traditions and memories and libraries, all 
characterized by a ripened culture, become beautiful 
with the passing years, just as the colleges and halls 
of the old English universities are more sacred to-day 
now that many generations have left upon them the 
living thought and aiTection of the departed students. 
Youth is the period of generous impulses, of noble 
aspirations, of uudoubting faith. The Fraternity, as 
with an inspiration, found that the best ideal in the 
selection of young men must rest on the enduring prin- 
ciple that true friendship as shown in the boy is the 
index of the true manliness to be developed in the man. 
It is the story of friendship as illustrated by the affec- 
tion of Achilles for Patroclus, when he declared that 
though the dead forget their dead in Hades, even then 
he would not forget his dear comrade; and just as 
Apollo bound his bow with laurel in memory of Daphne, 



430 Orations and Historical Addresses 

whom he loved, the chord was touched that must al- 
ways give a responsive echo. With each succeeding 
year the Fraternitj^ will widen and widen until Greek 
temples and Greek hearths in every chapter will attest 
the living devotion of her sons. The influence for 
good, too, will not only exist in the undergraduate, but 
continue to live in many an unfinished life. Friend- 
ships are formed which do not die with college life, but 
they go on through the years of manhood, uniting the 
members in a closer relationship and lifting them up to 
a broader sym^jathy for others. These friendships 
are like running brooks, which deepen their channels 
as they run on forever. With increased influence will 
come increased responsibility, and our good name will 
depend upon the cultivation by every member of the 
true fraternal feeling. 

It was that spirit that enabled the Delta Kappa Epsi- 
lon Fraternity to build the first of all Greek homesteads 
in the forests of Gambler. It was the feudal loyalty 
of her sons which caused the armorial blazons of 
chivalry to be first employed among the Greek-letter 
societies — indeed, alone in a complete heraldic system. 
It was this spirit of generous fellowship which caused 
the chapters of the North after the desolation of civil 
war to turn with an abiding affection to the chapters 
of the South, and welcome again with the fraternal 
hand those who had been brothers in a common pros- 
perity. Her young men fell like leaves in the blasts 
of autumn, and every grave consecrated by a sacrifice 
which held devotion to duty as better than life— how- 
ever mistaken the cause— will only awaken respect in 
the heart of every brave man. In the rekindling of 
the flame, in the renewal of pledges, and in the singing 
of the Fraternity songs, we ask them with us to hail 



The Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity 431 

the new stars which are constantly rising in the 
crowded galaxy of our flag, and we ask them with us 
to look to the Federal Constitution as the sacred cove- 
nant of a perpetual union. In unbroken unity alone 
will be found unconquerable strength. We must all 
march forward, conscious of the power and perma- 
nency of our political institutions, in the path to im- 
perial greatness. 

If in the classic myths of the old heroes Atlas is 
represented as bearing the heavens on his massive 
shoulders— even the whole starry world, with its im- 
mense mystery of the planets and its azure of glitter- 
ing constellations— so let us to-night picture our be- 
loved Fraternity, crowned with the triumphs of the 
past half century and inspired with the glowing 
prophecies of the still unmeasured years, as standing 
in matchless synnnetrj^ and with a devotion that knows 
no weariness, holding a world of scholarship and gen- 
ial fellowship in her uplifted hand. 



KING PHILIP'S WAR 

In 1675, the number of Indians in New England was 
roughly computed at fifty thousand souls. They had 
been supplied with arms by unprincipled traders, 
which they had learned to use with deadlj^ accuracy, 
and the possession of which gave them a dangerous 
consciousness of power. They were confined, in a 
good measure, by the continued extension of the Eng- 
lish settlements to peninsulas and necks of land on 
the coast. Many of the tribes, consequently, began to 
suffer from insufficient room to procure subsistence 
and began to be impatient of English dominion. 

Massasoit was the earliest and firmest friend of the 
English, and this friendship continued until his death. 
He was succeeded by his son, Wamsutta, who held sway 
among the Pokanokets. Wamsutta, only a few months 
after his accession to power, on some vague suspicion, 
was seized by a party of English and carried prisoner 
into Plymouth, where, in a few days afterward, he 
died of a fever, brought on by anger and irritation. 
Metacomat, his brother, more commonly known as King 
Philip, succeeded to the throne, and, from profound 
policy, evinced great friendship to the English. He 
maintained for nine years, with extraordinary dissimu- 
lation, the appearance of peace and good will, although 
he cherished feelings of revenge for the death of his 
brother, and the encroachments on his territory. 

Delivered as Governor of the Society of Colonial "Wars in 
the State of Ohio, at the First Grand Council, December 
19, 1895. 

[432] 



King Philip's War 433 

It is related that as early as 1671, in an arbitra- 
tion arising from dispnted territory, Philip subscribed 
a set of articles, in which he practically yielded almost 
every point in question, and, in a manner "delivered 
himself, body and soul, into the hands of the Plymouth 
authorities." His motive, doubtless, was to blind his 
enemies as to the extent and dangerous nature of the 
conspiracy he was then meditating. His plan was 
nothing less than the complete extermination of the 
whites; and in its prosecution he displayed a policy, 
courage and perseverance, which, in a savage, has 
never been surpassed. To knit the tribes of New Eng- 
land, immemorially dissevered by traditional feuds 
and enmity, into a confederacy against a foe so terri- 
ble as the English, might well have seemed to the 
most sanguine a hopeless task. Yet such was the ob- 
ject to which Philip bent all his policy and energy, 
and in which, to a great extent, he succeeded. He re- 
sorted alike to argument, persuasion and menace with 
the utmost adroitness. 

In the spring of 1675 Philip sent six embassadors 
to Awashonks, Queen of the Sogkonates, demanding 
that the tribe should join the league. A solemn dance 
was appointed, to decide the question, and Awashonks, 
that the opposite party might not be unrepresented, 
sent for Captain Benjamin Church, the only white 
man in her domains. Captain Church was one of the 
most famous Indian fighters in New England history, 
and had just settled in the wilderness of Sogkouate, 
or, as called by the English, Little Compton. He is 
described as a man of undaunted courage, of a sagacity 
fitted to cope with the wiliest tactics of Indian warfare, 
and, withal, of a kindly and a generous disposition, 
which, except when engaged in immediate hostilities, 



434 Orations and Historical Addresses 

seems to have secured for him the respect and attach- 
ment of the wild tribes he so often encountered. His 
narrative, written in his old age, by his son, from his 
own notes and dictation, is one of the choicest frag- 
ments of original history in our joossession. As a 
literary performance, it is (]uite respectable; but for 
vividness of detail and strength of expression, it is 
something more, and may well be entitled to rank with 
such rude and stirring productions as "The True Con- 
quest" of Bernal Diaz, and the "True Adventures" 
of Captain John Smith. The title page of the second 
edition, which was printed in Boston in 1716, reads: 
"The Entertaining History of King Philip's War, 
which began in the month of June, 1675; and also of 
Expeditions more lately made against the Common 
Enemy, and Indian rebels, in the eastern parts of 
New England: with some account of the Divine Provi- 
dence towards Col. Benjamin Church, by Thomas 
Church, Esq., his son." 

A grand council was held, on his arrival, at which 
the six Wampanoags appeared in great state, making 
a formidable appearance, with their faces painted, 
and their hair trimmed back in comb fashion, with their 
powder horns and shot-bags at their backs, which, 
among that nation, says a writer, is the posture and 
figure of preparedness for war. A fierce discussion 
ensued, and a privy councilor, named Little Eyes, at- 
tempted to draw Church aside in the bushes, to private- 
ly dispatch him, but was prevented by others. The 
Englishman, with great boldness, advised Awashonks 
"to knock those six Mount Hopes— so-called from 
Mount Hope, the favorite seat of Philip— on the head, 
and shelter herself under the protection of the Eng- 



Kiji(j Philip's War 435 

lisla." The Queen dismissed the embassy, and, for a 
time, observed neutrality, if not fidelity. 

It was now evident that Pliilij) was preparing for 
active war. He sent all of the women and children 
of his tribe into the Narragansett Country, and held 
a great dance, lasting for several weeks, with all the 
warriors of his neighborhood. The first blow was 
struck on the twenty-fourth of June, 1675, in an attack 
on the little town of Swansey. Nine of the settlers 
were killed, and the rest fled, while the Indians fired 
their deserted dwellings. 

Soldiers were sent from Massachusetts, and Church, 
with a company from Plymouth, hastened to the fron- 
tier. Philip was compelled to flee, but only to ravage 
the country in other remote spots. Churcli, with only 
nineteen men, holding on in pursuit, at last, on the 
site of the present town of Tiverton, fell in with three 
hvmdred of the enemy. "The hill," he tells us, 
"seemed to move, being covered over with Indians, 
with their bright guns glittering in the sun, and run- 
ning in a circumference with a design to surround 
them." The English defended themselves with much 
desperation and courage, until taken off by a vessel 
which came to their aid. 

The English forces, at last uniting, after some in- 
decisive engagements, compelled Philip and his war- 
riors to take refuge in a great swamp at Pocasset. 
Philip:), defeated, with a loss of thirty warriors, in an- 
other engagement, fled westward, and excited the more 
remote tribes to warfare. Numbers of the English 
were killed, and several flourishing villages on the 
frontier were burned. Philip, aided by the continually 
exciting causes of enmity, developed by war with a 
foe so indefinite as "the Indians," had succeeded in 



436 Orations and Historical Addresses 

awakening a general hostility among the numerous 
tribes of the frontier. From this time an almost con- 
tinual succession of Indian attacks occurred, and town 
after town was laid in ashes. It was supposed that he 
was present at many of the scenes of midnight assault 
and massacre which, at that time, filled New England 
with alarm; but it is certain that he was seldom recog- 
nized. Once, it is said, he was seen at a successful 
attack, riding on a black horse, leaping fences, and 
exulting in the scene of destruction; and, again, that 
he once ordered an arm chair to be brought forth, that 
he might enjoy at his ease the conflagatiou of a vil- 
lage. 

The people of Hadley, on the first of September, as- 
sembled at the meeting house, armed as usual ; and, 
but for an unexpected assistance, would probably have 
been overwhelmed. An old man, with long white hair, 
dressed in the fashion of former days, suddenly ap- 
peared, and assumed the command. By his courage 
and skillful strategy, he put the enemy to flight, and 
then disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as he 
came. Many of the people supposed him to be an 
angel, providentially sent to their aid; but he was, in 
reality. Major General Goffe, one of the regicide judges 
of King Charles, who, with his companion, Whalley, 
had been concealed for ten years in the cellar of Rev- 
erend Mr. Russell, minister of the town. "There are 
few incidents in history more striking than that of the 
old soldier," says the narrator, "so long immured in 
this dismal habitation, roused once more by the clash 
of arms and the discharge of musketry, to mingle, for 
the last time, in the half-forgotten scenes of combat, 
and then shrinking back forever into the gloom and 
twilight of his subterranean abode." 



King Philip's War 437 

Tn the following October, a body of seven or eight 
hundred savages attacked the garrison at Hatfield. 
The Indians were driven off, and suffered greatly 
from want and exposure during the ensuing winter. 
Philip and his warriors, it was supposed, had taken 
refuge with the Narragansetts. The English now re- 
solved to crush the latter tribe, as the most easily 
accessible, on account of the shelter they had afforded 
the enemy. 

Five hundred soldiers, under the command of 
Josias Wiuslow, governor of Plymouth, were sent 
against this tribe, and on the afternoon of December 
19, 1765, a bitter winter's day, after a forced march, 
arrived at their principal fort. It was built on a pla- 
teau of elevated ground of perhaps three or four acres 
in a great swamp, and the only access to it was by the 
trunk of a large tree, lying in the water. The i^lace 
of the fort was about seven miles nearly due west from 
Narragansett, South Ferry, and in South Kingston, 
Rhode Island. The assailants made their way across 
this bridge of peril, with much loss, and after a desper- 
ate battle within, lasting for some hours, firing the 
fort, they renewed the terrible tragedy of Groton. 
Seven hundred of the Narragansett warriors are said 
to have fallen in the fight, and nearly half that num- 
ber perished of their wounds. It is said that five hun- 
dred wigwams were burned with the fort, and two hun- 
dred more in other parts of Narragansett. 

The defeated Narragansetts, Jiowever, did not fall 
unavenged. Eiglity of the English were slain in the 
engagement, and one hundred and fifty were wounded, 
—many of whom perished on the return march. The 
situation was rendered more intolerable not only from 
the severity of the cold, but because of a tremendous 



438 Orations and Historical Addresses 

storm, which filled the atmosphere with snow, and 
through which they were compelled to march eighteen 
miles hefore they arrived at their headquarters. 

Canonchet, the brave young sachem of the Narra- 
gansetts, with the remainder of his forces, took refuge 
in the west, where, in concert with Philip, he planned 
schemes of vengeful reprisal. Lancaster and Med- 
field— the latter only twenty miles from Boston— were 
burned, and nearly a hundred of the settlers were 
killed or carried off as prisoners. The brave Canon- 
chet, having raised a force of many hundred men, ven- 
tured eastward with a few warriors to procure seed 
for planting, and was shot at Stonington. "He re- 
fused," says a writer, "to purchase his life by pro- 
curing the submission of his injured tribe, and met his 
death with the highest courage and fortitude — a true 
patriot, and a hero, whose soul, to judge from his brief 
sayings, was cast in an almost classical mold." 

In the spring of 1676, the war continued to rage with 
alternate success. Part of Plymouth was burned. A 
force of cavalry, aided by a body of Mohegans, was 
especially employed against them. Two hundred were 
made prisoners on one occasion; five or six hundred 
surrendered on a doubtful promise of mercy, and many 
migrated to the west. Philip and his people still held 
out, and kept the settlements in continual dread of an 
attack. 

The Sogkonates, at this time, were in alliance with 
Philip, but they became detached from the hostile 
league, and declared to the English that "they would 
help them to Philip's head ere the Indian corn be 
ripe." It is said that the desertion of this tribe, and 
the ceremony of swearing allegiance to the English, 
"broke Philip's heart as soon as he understood it. 



King Philip's War 439 

so as be uever rejoiced after, or had success in any of 
his designs." 

With an English force, and a considerable number 
of Indian warriors. Church, in June, 1G76, commenced 
an active campaign against the enemy, scouring the 
woods in all directions, and killing or making prisoners 
a great number of the hostile savages. Once he fell 
in with Little Eyes, who would have killed him at 
Awashonk's dance, and his Indians wished him to be 
revenged, but, instead, he afforded him especial care 
and loroteetion. 

In following the enemy into the Narragansett coun- 
try, Church came to Taunton Eiver, over which the 
Indians had felled a large tree for the purpose of 
crossing. On the stump, at the opposite side, sat a 
solitary warrior. Church quietly raised his gim, but 
was pervented from firing from the suggestion that 
it was a friend. It was Philip himself, musing 
drearily, no doubt, on the fallen fortunes of bis race. 
Before a gnn could again be leveled, he sprang up 
and bounded like a deer into the forest. The Indians 
were posted in a swamj) near at hand, and after a short 
skirmish, were defeated, and one hundred and seventy- 
three, including women and children, were captured. 
Philip and most of his warriors escaped, but his wife 
and children were among the prisoners. His wife de- 
scribed his condition as forlorn in the extreme, and 
said, that after the last misfortune he was quite incon- 
solable. 

In all the present region washed by the circling 
Narragansett, there is no spot more beautiful than that 
miniature mountain, the home of the old sachems of 
the Wampanoags. The unhappy warrior, after seeing 
his followers one after another fall before the English, 



440 Orations and Historical Addresses 

or desert his failing cause, had betaken himself, like 
some wild animal hard driven by the hunters, to his 
ancient haunt, the former residence of his father, the 
friendly Massasoit. With what feelings the last of 
their number, a fugitive before inveterate foes and 
recreant followers, looked on the pleasant habitation 
of his fathers, may more easily be imagined than de- 
scribed. He sternly rejected all proposals for peace, 
and even slew one of his own followers who had ven- 
tured to speak of treaty with the English. The brother 
of this victim, naturally enraged and alienated from 
his cause, at once deserted to the enemy, and gave the 
information which led to his final ruin. 

A few brave warriors remained faithful to him, and 
with these and their women and children, Philip had 
taken refuge in a swamp hard by the mountain, on a 
little spot of rising ground. On that troubled night, 
the last of his life, the sachem, we are told, had 
dreamed of his betrayal, and awakening early, was 
recounting the vision to his companions, when the foe 
suddenly came upon him. His old enemy. Church, 
who was familiar with the ground, had posted his fol- 
lowers, both English and Indian, so as, if possible, to 
prevent any from escaping. After several volleys had 
been rapidly fired, Philip, in attempting to gain a se- 
cure position, came in range of an ambush, and was 
instantly shot through the heart by one Alderman, 
an Indian under Church's command. He fell on his 
face with his gun under him, and died without a strug- 
gle, Saturday, August 12, 1676. Most of the warriors, 
under old Annawon, Philip's chief captain, made their 
escape. 

The body of the imfortunate Philip was drawn from 
the swamp, a spectacle of exultation for the army, and 



King Philip's War 441 

Cliurcli, following the barbarous fashion of the time, 
declared that, forasmuch as he had caused many an 
Englishman's body to be unburied, and to rot above 
ground, no one of his bones should be buried. ' ' This 
Agag" says Cottou Mather, "was now cut into quar- 
ters, which were then hanged up, while his head was 
carried in triumph to Plymouth, where it arrived on 
the very day that the church there was keeping a 
solemn thanksgiving to God. God sent 'em the head 
of a leviathan for a thanksgiving feast." 

The sinewy right hand of the dead warrior, much 
scarred by the bursting of a pistol, was given to Alder- 
man, to show to such gentlemen as would bestow gra- 
tuities upon him. Thus died Philip of Pokanoket, the 
last sachem of the Wampanoags, the originator and 
head of that terrible confederacy, which so long kept 
New England in dread and consternation, and which, 
at one time, seemed almost to threaten its entire de- 
struction. He was, undoubtedly, a man far superior 
to the generality of his race, in boldness, sagacity, and 
policy; his powers of persuasion were extraordinary, 
and the terrifying results of his enmity sufficiently 
evinced the ambitious nature of his scheme, and the 
genius with which it was conducted. His own suffer- 
ings and the injuries of his family have awakened in 
succeeding generations somewhat of that spupathy 
which is always due to misfortune; and though the 
defeated leader of a ruined confederation, his name, 
more than that of any other of the Indian race, has 
always excited the interest, if not the admiration of 
mankind. 

Annawon and the few warriors whom death and de- 
stniction had yet left to maintain the hopeless cause 
of the Pokanokets, were soon taken prisoners by sur- 



442 Orations and Historical Addresses 

prise, and all their guns, which were stacked at the 
head of Annawon, were secured. It is interesting 
to follow the historian as he describes the romantic 
incidents of this wonderful surprise : How the whole 
company, English and Indians, wearied with pursuit 
and flight, were soon wrapt in slumber, all but the 
two leaders, who lay looking at each other by the 
glimmering light of the embers: how Annawon arose 
and disappeared in the darkness, but soon returned 
bearing a powder horn, a scarlet blanket, and two 
splendid belts of wampum, the regalia of the unfor- 
tunate Philip : how he solemnly invested Church with 
these royalties, as the victor over the last of the hos- 
tile tribes; and how, in the words of the Captain, "they 
spent the remainder of the night in discourse, and 
Annawon gave an account of what mighty success he 
had formerly in war against many nations of Indians, 
when he served Asuhmequin (Massasoit), Philip's 
father." 

The capture of Annawon, who was afterwards put 
to death, ended King Philip's war— a war which, 
though it lasted only a year and a half, seemed almost 
to threaten the destruction of New England. Thir- 
teen towns had been laid in ashes, and many others par- 
tially destroyed; six hundred dwellings were burned 
by the enemy; sis hundred Englishmen had lost their 
lives, and the i^rosjoerity of the whole country had been 
severely checked and retarded. But if misfortune had 
been experienced by the victim, utter ruin and almost 
annihilation had been the part of the vanquished. In 
war, in conflagration, by starvation and cold, such vast 
numbers had perished that the effective force of the 
hostile savages was completely broken, and many of 
their tribes were nearly extinguished. The son of 



King Philip's War 443 

Philip, a child ouly uiue years of age, was shipped as 
a slave to Bermuda. Thus perished a nation: 

"Indulge, our native land, indulge the tear 

That steals impassioned o'er a nation's doom: 
To us each twig from Adam's stock is dear 
And tears of sorrow deck an Indian tomb." 

Two hundred and twenty years to-night have elapsed 
since that eventful day in December, 1675. We have 
passed from the Colonial period through the Revolu- 
tion to the time of the Republic. The communities 
founded by the men who fought King Philip's war 
have gradually grown up to great commonwealths. If 
magTianimity were wanting at times, it must be re- 
membered that there was needed that earnestness 
which can alone successfully contend with great ob- 
stacles, either human or natural— with civil tyranny 
and religious persecution— with the privations and 
dangers of the wilderness, and the unsparing enmity 
of its savage inhabitants. 

These two hundred and twenty years have been 
crowned with the blessings of liberty and order and 
law. The civilization which began on the bays and 
inlets of the Atlantic has extended in parallel lines 
across to the Pacific. New Engfand, said Mr. Web- 
ster, contains in its system three institutions which 
alone would have sufficed to make it free,— the Town 
Meeting, the Congregational Church, and the Common 
Schools. We can best prove worthy of Colonial an- 
cestry by revering the arts and arms, and maxims im- 
perial of Colonial glory. 



JAMES EGBERT BICKLEY 

"When Andi'e Chenier, the everlasting regret of 
French genius and poesy, was about to die on the guil- 
lotine, then only in his thirty-second year, and not for 
crime, but in the mad career of the Bevolution, he 
turned to the executioner and placing his hand on hia 
own head, said, "It is a pity: for there is something 
here. ' ' 

It does seem a pity, — an everlasting pity,— that our 
young friend should have stepped so suddenly from 
life into death. It is hardly possible to realize that 
he has left us for the unknown, although we are pain- 
fully conscious in the gloom which surrounds us all 
that the gentle Bickley is absent. We can only stand 
this morning, and look into the great cloud of mystery 
which now enshrouds his form. 

The chamber of death must always impress the en- 
lightened spirit. The sun which sinks to rest after 
the day is done, and reflects a golden glory on orchards 
and forests and homes alike, is a grand picture in 
nature. But our sun has gone down while it is yet 
day, and even the meridian had not been reached be- 
fore the light disappeared in the shadow on the hori- 
zon. 

Surely the admonition comes to us this day with 
amazing force that we cannot walk too thoughtfully 
on the shores of life's great ocean. Our little barks 

Delivered over the Clrave at New London, Ohio, September 
23, 1897, as the Tribute of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fra- 
ternity. 

[444] 



James Robert Bickleij 445 

^vill soon set sail ou the same illimitable sea. Some- 
times, indeed, we can almost hear, in the silence of the 
receding world, the breaking of the restless waves on 
the other side. 

All must at last go down to the dust, potentate 
and prince and peasant alike, but it is a blessed conso- 
lation to know that when the earthly voice is stilled 
there yet remains the everlasting voice with its whisp- 
erings of consolation and love. Our departed brother 
looked ujD with a sublime confidence and that faith 
fills the clouds with many rays of sunshine. 

James Robert Bickley was generous and manly and 
possessed a high sense of honor. He worshiped the 
beautiful in poetry and nature. He walked in the 
sunshine, and rejoiced in bird-song and budding flower. 
He cultivated the better associations of life and wooed 
and won by his friendships. All who were brought in 
contact with him shared the companionship of his lov- 
able nature. 

He always seemed to so live in the consciousness 
of saying good things and doing good things that there 
must have constantly been before him the ladder which 
Jacob saw in his dreams, where above every ascending 
purpose there were angelic sj^irits beckoning ui)wards 
and i^ointing to the stars. 

What hopes, what aspirations, what ambitions, what 
expectations must lie buried in the grave with him ! 

To those who knew him in the sweet relation of 
Fraternity fellowship his death must bring an inex- 
pressible sadness. The memory of this tender and 
affectionate brother, however, will linger within the 
darkened halls of Kappa Chapter like the broken ala- 
baster box which filled the house with the richest fra- 



446 Orations and Historical Addresses 

grance. There is heard in all this sadness of sorrow- 
ing brethren a melody like the Bell of Whittier : 

"Not upou us, or ours, the solemn angel 
Hath evil wrought: 
The funeral anthem is a glad evangel, 
The good die not." 

Yet when we think of the hand once clasped in the 
warmth of an abiding friendship— the unbroken vow— 
the kindling of the flame on the altar whence arose 
only the most fragrant incense- the generous confi- 
dence which comes only from mutual respect and affec- 
tion, there must be much desolation in our hearts. 

The tender memories which centre about his life 
will not be dimmed with the coming and going of the 
years. How can we ever forget the clustering graces 
which beautified his character? 

We lay him to rest today under these cloudless 
September skies and in the midst of a landscape of 
surpassing loveliness. We shall mourn for our brother 
as he sleeps in this valley he loved so well, and where 
the gently flowing IMiami shall murmur for him a per- 
petual requiem, as Virgil mourned for Marcellus — the 
young, the brave, the beautiful— whose memory he 
has immortalized in fitting verse in the sixth book of 
the Aeneid. 

Over his grave, the verdure of which shall not be 
greener than his memory, there may well be written 
for an epitaph what was so touchingly said of young 
Kirke ^Tiite: 

"While life was in its spring 
And thy young muse .just waved her joyous wing. 
The Spoiler came, and all the promise fair 
Has sought the grave to sleep forever there. ' ' 



James Robert Bickley 447 

Note.— Kappa Chapter was revived October 16, 1889, through 
the efforts of Ex-Senator Calvin S. Brice and Judge Samuel F. Hunt. 
Since that time the chapter has taken high rank in Miami Uni- 
versity, and among the number she has graduated with distinction 
was James Robert Bickley, of the class of '97. He delivered the 
president's address in June last, at the class-day exercises, and was 
one of the orators on commencement day. 

On the morning of September 17th, while returning from a visit 
to the chapter house, at Oxford, Ohio, he was thrown violently from 
a bicycle into a deep ravine at the roadside. Death came peacefully 
upon him the following Monday. The funeral exercises were held 
on the morning of September 23, 1897, at the New London Con- 
gregational Church, of which he had been for many years a worthy 
and consistent member. Miami University was closed for the day 
and many of the students were present. The Kappa Chapter at- 
tended in a body. The pupils of the New London schools were in 
attendance and a vast throng of people — friends and neighbors — 
filled the church edifice and the surrounding grounds. The pro- 
cession to the grave was an event in the history of the valley. 

The services — beautiful and impressive — were under the direc- 
tion of the Reverend William O. Thompson, D. D., L.L.D., President 
of Miami University. They included the funeral sermon, by Presi- 
dent Thompson; an address by the Reverend Edward W. Abby, of 
Hamilton, Ohio, and a tribute on behalf of the Delta Kappa Epsilon 
Fraternity, by Hon. Samuel F. Hunt, of Cincinnati, 0. (From 
The Delta Kappa Epsilon Quarterly, June, 1898.) 



SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP PIONEER AS- 
SOCIATION 

Felloiv Citizens of Springfield Township, Ladies and 
Gentlemen, Members of the Pioneer Association: 

We have assembled to-day under the spreading 
branches of the primeval forest and beneath the genial 
skies of this perfect September afternoon to exalt the 
maxims and traditions which have become identified 
with this people, and to preserve for the future the 
memory of the good men and the good women who laid 
deep the foundations upon which the homes and the 
institutions of Springfield township have been erected. 

The fires burn brightly on our altars from an en- 
kindled zeal, while the incense of domestic contentment 
rises in sweetest fragrance from all the homes of our 
beloved township. 

This is indeed a representative gathering. We have 
come from the banks of Pleasant Run, which flows 
gracefully toward the great Miami river; from the 
rich garden spot of the township, watered by Hunt's 
Eun, the current of which at last mingles with that of 
the mighty Ohio; from the meadow lands and rocky 
ledges of Whisky Run, with its tortuous windings and 
quaint associations; and from the gently flowing Mill 
creek, as it ti'aces its way amidst scenes of picturesque 
beauty and rural loveliness until, like the Monongahela 
and Allegheny, another Pittsburg is found, near Ar- 
lington Heights, for the junction of its waters. 

Delivered at its Fifth Annual Reunion, Mount Healthy, 
Ohio, September 3, 1898. 

[448] 



Springfield Totnisliip Pioneer Association 449 

We have come from the thrifty Huston settlement; 
from the region about the Newell school house; from 
the enchanting landscape of Crestvue ; from the high- 
land of Woodlawn, from which a panorama of forest 
and foliage is spread out like the hanging gardens of 
old Babylon; from the fertile farming land of "Ground 
Squirrel College," more beautiful than the far-famed 
Blue Grass region of Kentucky, from the classic pre- 
cincts of Science Hall, which overlooks the valley like 
the majestic Parthenon crowning the Acropolis of 
Athens, and from the shadow of old Liberty Chapel, 
the Faneuil Hall of Springfield township. 

We have come, too, from the village of New Bur- 
lington, with her associations of the New Light faith; 
from Mt. Healthy, with her history of the Liberty con- 
ventions; from Hartwell, with her beautiful maple- 
shaded avenues; from Lockland, with her hum and 
whirl of mill life; from Wyoming, embosomed in a sea 
of verdure; from Springdale, the ancient capital of 
the township, and from beautiful Glendale, with her 
forest-capped diadem, the empress of the Mill creek 
Valley. 

Our harvests have all been peacefully gathered to 
their garners; our valleys are rustling with standing 
corn; the whistle of "Bob White" is answered from 
the distant woodland; the songs of happy children 
mingle with the songs of birds— all the surroundings 
would woo and win us to-day from the care and strife 
of a busy life to the friendly grasp of the hand and 
to the exchange of fraternal greetings. The badge of 
the Pioneer Association of Springfield township to- 
day is the badge of the Legion of Honor. 

We come here today not only as citizens of Spring- 
field township, but with the higher and more exultant 



450 Orations and Historical Addresses 

feeling that we are fellow citizens of the American 
Union. With peace practically restored, there fol- 
lows the proud consciousness of great honor for our 
arms, for our manhood and for the everlasting glory 
of the flag. There is, too, above the roar of the guns 
at San Juan and El Canej^ the sublimely grand thought 
of a re-united republic, and that the fraternal feeling 
has been cemented by the blood of a common country. 
A new generation is here. The north and the south 
exist only as geographical distinctions, and the an- 
imosities of civil war are forgotten. Only its history 
and traditions are remembered. 

There will be criticism of military operations, but 
it must be remembered that the Hispano- American 
war was carried on wholly in the tropics, and that both 
the health and the temper of the soldiers have been 
subjected to a severe strain. It must not be forgotten, 
too, that large bodies of troops have been transported 
great distances by sea— the most difficult task incident 
to war— and that they have not only been landed 
promptly and safely, but proceeded expeditiously and 
successfully to the execution of arduous military oper- 
ations. The flag of the United States of America is 
the flag of liberty, of law and of civilization. It has 
been raised up in Cuba and Puerto Eico and the Phil- 
ippine Islands, so that it might raise up all men with it. 

This great achievement brings with it an immeasur- 
able responsibility for us as a nation. It carries with 
it the high duty to guarantee equal rights to life, to 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness to the people, 
and to all the people, of those islands of the seas. We 
must extend to them, so long as the flag floats, law, 
order, equal rights and civil and religious privileges. 
We must educate the people to self-government, and 



Springfield Township Pioneer Association 451 

then let the future decide whether they shall establish 
an independent republic or remain a part of the grand- 
est, freest and most representative popular govern- 
ment under the light of the sun. 

The same supreme will that demanded this war will 
demand for the present, at least the extension of our 
flag and authority where existed the proud sovereignty 
of Aragon and Castile. This may sound like imperial- 
ism, but it is the imperialism that has become identified 
with the destiny of a great, free government, and which 
will be welcomed by the American people without ref- 
erence to party lines. The inspiration of liberty be- 
longs to every heart that beats to be free. The very 
winds will be its allies. It is the inspiration that 
thundered forth in Dewey's guns at Manila Bay, and 
the guns at Santiago de Cuba, no less than at Gettys- 
burg, and declared so that all the world could hear 
that "a government of the people, by the people and 
for the people should not perish from the earth." 

Nor shall we cease to remember, even in the midst 
of our exultation and in the sweetness of fraternal re- 
unification, the men who lifted up their hands on land 
and on sea for the honor of their country. The rich 
foliage of the tropics may sigh over the new made 
graves of El Caney and San Juan hill and the island 
of Luzon, and the waters of the Caribbean murmur a 
perpetual requiem for the dead, but the heart of this 
great people will always beat high and responsive at 
the story of their patriotism and their valor. 

The war has given us a conscious unity such as 
has not been realized since the earliest days of the re- 
public, and has demonstrated not only to Continental 
Europe, but to the whole world the character and aims 



452 Orations and Historical Addresses 

and purposes of our people more than a century has 
revealed. 

It has opened up numerous channels for American 
capital for investment and industrial improvement. 
This must be considered in connection with the policy 
of annexation. The Golden Gate is now the pathway 
to the orient. We can now stand on the shores of the 
Atlantic, instead of the shores of the Pacific, and point- 
ing to the west say, "Yonder is India, and China, and 
Japan, and the islands of the seas." We shall now 
enter Asia by the back door with our laws, our com- 
merce and our civilization, until the Tigris and the 
Euphrates shall run through renovated gardens, and 
Nineveh and Babylon become the foundations of cities 
of this great American civilization. 

We must turn, however, from the glorious pages of 
martial events to the contemplation of our own local 
history. 

The first printed reference to the Miami rivers is 
found in a topographical description published in Lon- 
don in 1778, from explorations made in the western 
wilderness between the years 1764 and 1775 by Cap- 
tain Thomas Hutchins, of Her Britannic Majesty's 
Sixtieth Regiment of foot, afterwards geographer of 
the United States during service with the British 
armies in this country. He speaks of the Little 
Mineami as too small to be navigable with batteaux, 
of its fine land and salt springs, and its high-lauds and 
gentle current, which prevented any great overflow. 
The Great Mineami, Afferment, or Rocky river is de- 
scribed as having a very swift channel, a rapid stream 
but no falls, and passable with boats a great way. 

Judge Symmes wrote to General Dayton concerning 



Springfield ToHuship Pioneer Association 453 

the Miami purchase, from North Bend, as early as May 
27, 1789, that "the country was healthy and looked like 
a mere meadow for many miles together in some 
places." It is certain that the forests were rich in 
foliage and the fertility of the soil unimpaired l)y long 
cultivation. 

This was the character of the territoiy which was 
"erected" into a township called Springtield in 1795 
by the Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace 
for Hamilton county. In the general rearrangements 
of the townships of Hamilton county in 1803 there were 
certain changes made in the sections, so that it now 
includes but forty-two sections instead of sixty as 
originally, and contains but tweuty-iive thousand, 
eight hundred and ninety-six acres of land. The south, 
east and west boundaries are run with approximate 
exactness, but the lines of the sections commence to 
break this regTilarity at the second parallel and con- 
tinue so until the north or Butler county line is reached, 
when they resemble the zig-zag of an old-fashioned 
worm fence. 

John Cleves Symmes wrote General Dayton in 1789 
that the men and women of the earliest Miami immi- 
gration called themselves Miamese— the pioneers of 
a grand army that came to subdue the wilderness and 
to conquer only in the name of peace. 

The first settlers in Springfield township found the 
Miami tribe of Indians in possession of the land. They 
were of the Algonquin stock, the ancient enemy of the 
Iroquois Indians. Little Turtle, the famous Miami 
chief, in the treaty of Greenville in 1795, thus described 
the boundaries of tlie Miami Indians, in whose history 
the people of southwestern Ohio are chiefly interested : 
"My forefather kindled the first fire at Detroit; from 



454 Orations and Historical Addresses 

there he extended his line to the headwaters of the 
Scioto; from thence to its mouth; from thence down 
the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash, and from thence 
to Chicago on Lake Michigan. These are the boundar- 
ies within which the prints of my ancestors' homes 
are everywhere to be seen." The French explorers 
found the Miamis on this territory, and not anywhex'e 
else. Little Turtle was one of the chiefs who signed 
the treaty of Greenville, and never took the war path 
thereafter. He died at Fort Wayne thirty years after- 
ward. The Miami Indians refused to join the hostile 
alliance with Tecumseh, but their sympathies were 
finally enlisted against the Americans in the war of 
1812. A final treaty was concluded with them Sep- 
tember 8, 1815, and they have disappeared in the twi- 
light of mystery. 

The wonderful fertility and beauty of the Miami 
valleys were carefully observed by Daniel Boone when 
a captive among the Shawnees in 1778, and by the 
war parties from Kentucky led by George Eogers 
Clark and others against the Indians on the Little 
Miami and Mad rivers; but the great Ordinance of 
July 13, 1787, forming the Northwestern Territory, 
first opened the way for a permanent settlement. 

The people of the ]\Iiami country were characterized 
as industrious, frugal, temperate, patriotic and reli- 
gious. They came from a race historically brave and 
courageous, and their immediate ancestors were bred 
in the school of the Revolution. They were the chil- 
dren of those who took an active part in its dangers 
and sufferings. "They were," says a writer, "as 
varied in their character and pursuits as the parts 
they had to perform in the great action before them. 
Some were soldiers in the long battle against the In- 



Springfield Township Pioneer Association 455 

dians; some were huntsmen, like Boone and Kenton, 
thirsting for fresh adventures; some were plain 
farmers, who came with their wives and children, shar- 
ing fully in their toils and dangers; some were lawyers 
and jurists, who early participated in council and 
legislation; and with them all, the doctor, the clergy- 
man and even the schoolmaster was found in the 
earliest settlements. In a few years others came, 
whose names will long be remembered in any true ac- 
count (if any such shall ever be written) of the science 
and literature of America. They gave to the strong 
but rude body of society here its earlier culture, in a 
higher knowledge and in a purer spirit." The pioneer 
woman was aptly described by King Lemuel in the 
Proverbs: "She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh 
willingly with her hands : she layeth her hands to the 
spindle, and her hands holdeth the distatf." 

Governor Arthur St. Clair, by a proclamation made 
January 4, 1790, "erected" a portion of the Miami 
purchase into the county of Hamilton. It was named 
after Colonel Alexander Hamilton, the secretary of 
the treasury, who was then but thirty-three years of 
age. Cincinnati, then known as Losautiville, the coim- 
ty seat, originally was the capital of the Northwest 
Territory, and in 1799 the first session of the territorial 
legislature was held there. The area of Hamilton 
county was then so large as to include about one-eighth 
of the present territory of Ohio. 

In 1792 Henry Tucker, Henry Weaver, Luke and 
Zebulon Foster, Jonathan Pittman and James Mc- 
Casken established a station on what is now section 
four, on the west branch of Mill creek, about one mile 
south of the present village of Glendale. This was 
on the military trace between Fort Washington and 



456 Orations and Historical Addresses 

Fort Hamilton, and is now known as a continuation of 
Wayne avenue in LocMand. 

In the spring of 1794 a new station house was 
erected, made necessary by the division of the original 
party into settlements, and this was called Pleasant 
Valley Station. A never failing spring of the choicest, 
clearest water still bears the name of Station spring, 
and traditionally marks the site as on the line between 
section four and section ten, on the west bank of Mill 
creek, on the Hamilton, Springfield and Carthage turn- 
pike and just west of the Woodlawn railroad station. 
Luke Foster was a lieutenant under St. Clair and made 
the offer of one hundred bushels of corn to relieve 
the garrison at Fort Washington in 1789. He re- 
mained with the Pleasant Valley settlement until his 
death, which occurred on August 27, 1851, then in 
his 88th year, by an accident with a gravel train 
on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railway, 
which passed through his farm. Henry Weaver, of 
this settlement, was appointed by Governor St. Clair, 
in 1794, one of the justices of the peace for Hamilton 
county, and later honorably filled the position of asso- 
ciate judge of the court of common pleas. 

These men, then, were representatives of the pioneers 
who pushed their way up the Millcreek valley to re- 
claim the wilderness and make their homes the abodes 
of hai^piness and contentment. 

Its first township officers were nominated in 1795 
by the Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace. 
The first clerk of the township was John Ludlow, and 
the first election in Springfield township for justices 
of the peace was held in 1803. 

The value of farming property at that time may be 
inferred from an advertisement in the Western Spy 



Springfield Townsliip Pioneer Association 457 

and Hamilton Gazette, of Cincinnati, for July 9, 1800, 
in which William Ludlow advertises his farm in 
Springfield township for sale— thirty to forty acres— 
and offers to take a brood mare in part payment. 

Since the organization of the township there has 
never been a defalcation of the public funds nor a 
breach of public duty on the part of its officers; 
and the long list of justices of the peace since 
the first election in 1803 has included men 
not only of good, practical judgment, but of incorrupti- 
ble integrity. Alexander Brown, Reuben VanZandt 
and John M. Cochran were fit types of our earlier 
township officers, and Alexander Mayhew, Samuel Mc- 
Lean and Reeves McGilliard were fit types of our 
earlier magistrates. 

The first certificate or "Miami Land Warrant" 
within the Symmes Purchase was issued December 17, 
1787, to Major Stites by John Cleves Symmes, and 
authorized the location of six hundred and forty acres 
at the point "between the mouth of the Little Miami 
and the Ohio in the pint." The fear of Indian depre- 
dations, however, hung like a pall over the Ohio Valley 
and deterred immigration to the Miami country. This 
was greatly increased by the fatal defeat of Arthur 
St. Clair by Little Turtle, chief of the Miamis, near 
Fort Recovery, Ohio, on the fourth day of November, 
1791, and was not removed until the decisive victory 
of Anthony Wayne at the battle of the Fallen Timbers, 
on the twentieth day of August, 1794, and the subse- 
quent treaty of Greenville on August 31, 1795. The 
prospect of permanent peace encouraged immigration 
again, and then commenced a history of uninterrupted 
growth and prosperity for the whole Miami country. 
Ohio was admitted as a State into the Union in 1802, 



458 Orations and Historical Addresses 

and the growth for the past quarter of a century was 
most remarkable. 

More than one hundred years have passed since the 
first settlement was made within the present limits of 
Springfield township. The Station spring still flows 
on — bright and clear and sparkling— to Mill creek; 
and yet three generations of men have appeared and 
disappeared since the establishment of the pleasant 
Valley Station. Those who laid broad and deep the 
foundations for the future have been followed like 
the torch of progress handed down from hand to hand, 
by others who have contributed to the material growth 
and the intellectual and moi-al development of the 
community. 

'Squire Jacob Senteny Peterson, of Springdale, born 
May 20, 1804, is the oldest living resident in Spring- 
field township. 

In the early history of Springfield township will 
be found the names of Foster, Tucker, Ludlow, Wea- 
ver, Pittman, Skillman, White, Griffen, Winans, Pryor, 
Flinn, Caldwell, Cain, Miller, Mclntire, Preston, Lef- 
ferson, Williamson, Martin, Pegg, Cogy, Thompson, 
Moore, Roll, Little, Adams, Gogin, Smith, Swallow, 
McGill, Swain, Scott, Wingent, Goble, Cameron, Cham- 
berlain, Crane, Dom, Lane, Wright, LaBoiteaux, Van- 
Dyke, Brown, Baldwin, Bolser, Schooley, Wilmuth, 
Captain John Brownson, Seward, McCormick, Long, 
Whellon, Pierson, Pendery, Hardenbrook, Hoel, 
Newell, Sprong, Urmston, LaRue, Van Zandt, McCash, 
Johnson, Jessup, Walden, Hoffner, McGilliard, Rod- 
gers. Miles, Page, McLean, Mayhew, Allen, Hunt, 
Hilts, Cox, Field, Perlee, Riddle, Peterson, Watson, 
Lindley, Packer, Snodgrass, Wolverton, Waterhouse, 
Duval, Walker, Friend, Hall, Carman, Hills, Yerkes, 



Springfield Township Pioneer Association 459 

Huston, Carnahan, Cochran, Comptou, Cummings, 
Lovett, Pratt, Kemper, Prague, Charles, Page, Pal- 
mer, Bacon, House, Hough and Tangeman. 

Some were laid away in the private burial ground 
on the very farm whose forests they felled ; some sleep 
in the old church yard at Reading; some lie in the 
neglected graveyard at Finneytown; some lie under 
the shadow of the church at New Burlington; some 
were buried in yonder cemetery, where Mt. Healthy 
cares for her dead; the names of many are inscribed 
on the tombstones in the old cemetery of Springdale 
—which marks the site of the old church of the north- 
west territory— while some await the morning of the 
resurrection in the city of the dead at Hamilton, and 
in beautiful Spring Grove cemetery. They were fru- 
gal and industrious and patriotic; they were orderly 
and respectful of constituted authority ; they were rev- 
erent of religion and encouraged the means of educa- 
tion. 

A self-respecting community, a law-abiding com- 
munity and a God-fearing community will hold to their 
memory with an abiding alTection. Their influence 
for good, like the jiure and clear and sparkling water 
of the Station spring, will rise in the unmeasured 
years of Springfield township. 

In the belfry of the Presbyterian church at Spring- 
dale there is an inscription which was prepared by the 
congregation which first worshiped at Foster's station 
in 1792. It shows that our fathers looked unto the 
hills whence came their help, and that a Divine Provi- 
dence gently led them by the hand through all the trials 
of the wilderness. With Isaiah they went up to the 
mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of 
Jacob, and were taught of His ways and walked in His 



460 Orations and Historical Addresses 

paths. It is not strange that all things were ordered and 
settled on the best and surest foundations and that 
peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and 
piety have been established among this people for all 
generations. 



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